Mass Effect 10: Part 1
by Diablo Ex Machina
Summary: After a cosmic bomb goes off and splits off copies of Ben into alternate realities, an older version of Ben lands on Eden Prime during Saren's attack. Using his shapeshifting abilities and advice from Paradox, Ben fashions himself as an extra-galactic ambassador. Joining Jane Shepard's crew, Ben finds himself on an(other) epic quest to determine the fate of the galaxy. Ben/Harem
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I bet you're all surprised to see me posting a story like this, aren't you? Well, if you had paid more attention to my aptly titled story "Diablo's Guidelines & Suggestions to Good Storytelling & Fan Fiction" then you would know that I've had this idea in my head for a little while now. And before anyone out there goes and says that this crossover idea has stalled out before it gets started every single time (which, admittedly, it totally has) please reserve your judgement until after you see me either make it or break it.**

 **I've done all my research, checked the details and walkthroughs of every mission and many bits of miscellaneous dialogue from the original trilogy (many thanks to FluffyNinjaLlama and TheGameMinion on youtube for providing a conveniently gathered collection of said missions and dialogue), and I hope to bring an enjoyable crossover experience to all of you. Who knows? Once all is said and done, maybe you'll find this story a more enjoyable alternative to the "canon" Original Trilogy (which, given the "ending(s)" of the 3rd game, even after the patch, is admittedly not a very tall order).**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 1

Just Another Tuesday

 _Why on earth do I feel like I just got a noogie from a Tetramand?_ Ben groaned as he rubbed a sore spot on the back of his head. "Did anyone get the licence of the space ship that hit me just now?" Immediately after speaking aloud, Ben bolted upright into a sitting position in shock at the sound of his own voice. "Why is my voice so much deeper?" He asked of no one as he rubbed his neck in confusion. "And since when do I have facial hair?!" He panicked as he scrambled to his feet, stumbling slightly as he found himself forced to adjust to yet another surprising change. "And pecs and biceps too?!" He continued as he flexed and gripped his arms, his shock quickly fading into approval and pride. "Though I can't say I really mind this change." He grinned smugly.

"All excellent questions, Ben," A familiar British accent interrupted his vane self-appraisal. "Albeit not the ones you should be heavily prioritizing at the moment, at least in comparison."

"Professor Paradox?" Ben turned to address the time traveling scientist in question, several blanks in his mind being quickly filled as the only possible reason for the presence of the immortal hero became apparent. "So that's why I look so much older, I was artificially aged." He realized as he stroked his beard thoughtfully. "And if you're here, and I've been aged up overnight, then that must mean you've got some time heroing-slash-universe saving you need my help with."

"An excellent, if only slightly inaccurate, deduction Young Ben!" Paradox cheered enthusiastically. "Or should I say 'Adult Ben', considering your current physical age? These matters get so confusing when you're a time-traveling immortal after all."

"Call me what you want, but do you think you could maybe change me back to normal first?" Ben requested. "I like having a heroic build as much as the next guy, but I'd kinda like the chance to grow into it on my own terms."

"I'm afraid there's going to be a slight problem with that plan Ben." Paradox shrugged sheepishly. "You see, I can only revert aging as far back as you exist, and you technically didn't exist until just a few moments ago."

"What are you talking about Professor? I'm 16 years old." Ben scratched his head in confusion. "Well, mentally anyway. Physically I'd say I'm in the ballpark of my thirties or forties." He jokingly amended his statement.

"Ben, you have experienced a great deal of traumatic and harrowing events in your life, so I know that you won't need much emotional bracing for what I am about to tell you." Paradox sighed as he reluctantly resigned himself, worrying Ben as he had never seen the jovial immortal look so dour before. "You are not the REAL Ben Tennyson, not as you know yourself at least. You are a clone, one of several created and scattered across the multiverse quite by accident in a quantum entanglement explosion during a battle against a new Negative 10."

"I'm...a clone?" Ben's jaw dropped as the implications quickly set in: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression flashed across his face as the shock worked through his system, before he eventually reached an unusual acceptance of his situation. Glancing at his wrist, he finally noticed that the familiar face plate of the Omnitrix was no longer there, leaving nothing but bare skin where the alien device once was. "Guess it was too much to hope for a replica Omnitrix too." He sighed, more upset by the lack of his transformation device than the news that he was a replica of the original Ben. "So what happened to the real Ben?"

"He's just fine." Paradox assured the replica Ben with a relieved smile. "He doesn't even know that anything happened to him. As far as he's aware the weapon the Negative 10 tried to use to kill him backfired horribly and killed them all."

"I take it they aren't really dead though." Ben remarked knowingly as he decided to take a look around his present location, only mildly surprised to see that the fields of grass and crops looked to be frozen mid-sway in the wind, immediately chalking it up to Paradox freezing time so they could talk freely without interruption. Looking a little further, he also noticed several metal blocks that looked like some kind of mass-produced space houses, and what looked like a spaceport with a particularly large, cuttlefish shaped spaceship immediately noticeable above it. "Let me guess, some of them landed here, and now I have to be the hero I was accidentally cloned to be and stop them - along with any other local threats - Omnitrix or no Omnitrix."

"Another well-educated, if also slightly off, theory." Paradox pat Ben on the back proudly. "You're much smarter and more accepting of this situation than the other Bens I'll speak with later."

"Eh, figures that I would only mellow with age." Ben shrugged as he parted the frozen corn blocking his view to get a better look at what he could now tell was obviously some kind of farming colony. "So what kind of new adventures and crime-fighting action should I be expecting of my new home? Anyone in particular I should be trying to arrest?"

"Straight to the point, that's what I like to see most in a Ben Tennyson." Paradox nodded in approval. "Before I answer your question though, I believe it would be best for both of us if we got you into some more appropriate attire." He suggested.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing right-" Ben abruptly stopped talking when he noticed that he was now wearing what looked like Rook's Proto-Armor, albeit several sizes bigger, and with green padding in place of the blue padding he was familiar with. "Huh, no matter how often I tell myself I've seen everything, something always seems to come along to prove me wrong." He smirked playfully at the ancient time traveler. "Especially whenever you get involved Paradox."

"Speaking of surprises, try pressing the button on your new headset." Paradox tapped behind his own left ear, gesturing for Ben to find a small band that curved around his own ear, with a small microphone bending along his jawline. Pressing the only button he found, Ben was surprised and delighted to see a black helmet with a transparent green faceplate spontaneously generate itself over his face and head.

"This is way too cool." Ben chuckled as he pressed the same button over and over, expanding and retracting his helmet again and again.

"I'm quite glad to see that you enjoy your gifts Ben, for I had Azmuth design them specifically to work in tandem with your new powers." Paradox explained playfully, causing Ben to freeze in excitement with his new helmet in the _on_ position.

"I have new powers?" Ben looked two seconds away from literally jumping in joy. "Even without the Omnitrix?"

"Yes or no, depending on your exact definition of _new_." Paradox answered in his typical cryptic fashion. "Try to remember what it felt like whenever your Slimbiote friend Skurd would transform your body parts."

Grinning in eager expectation, Ben focused his attention on his right arm, and was delighted, but not at all surprised to see his arm turning into diamond, complete with a sword in hand. "Awesome!" He laughed in excitement as he took a few practice swings, getting a feel for his new arm and sword. "Can I do this will all of my old aliens?"

"No, and you may want to put that away for the time being." Paradox requested, Ben reluctantly doing as he was asked, the armor on his arm reforming as his arm returned to normal. "Only the ten alien DNA samples Skurd used while fused with your Omnitrix have been fused with your biology, no doubt Skurd's own use of these genetic materials are the reason they ended up bonded to the DNA of this particular Ben, this Ben being you of course." He explained helpfully. "Likewise, you can only use the body parts Skurd used from these 10 aliens. Furthermore, your greater physical age is similarly due to your numerous time travel experiences while he was bonded with you, especially when you went back to before the Big Bang."

"Thanks for the exposition Paradox." Ben remarked as he made badass poses with the Bloxx-lobber in hand, the bright primary colors and lego-like construction of the weapon greatly diminishing how badass the poses looked. "Anything else I should know?"

"Indeed, for starters you may want to check the left side of the HUD on your helmet." Paradox suggested with a slight mirth, as if he was privy to a particularly funny inside joke, which he probably was.

"Now that's something I should have noticed sooner." Ben chuckled sheepishly as he put away his weapon, simultaneously turning his gaze to two columns of five circles each on his HUD. "What are these images for exactly?"

"Each one of those circles represent how much usage you can still get out of your transformations before you need to let them recharge." Paradox explained, making Ben groan in exasperation.

"You mean I still have to worry about all my powers having these stupid timers on them?" Ben whined - which, considering his physical age, was rather comical looking - as he noticed that each circle had the familiar symbols representing the 10 alien powers he currently had from his most recent Omnitrix. "And now I have ten timers to worry about instead of just one?"

"It's not all bad, Ben." Paradox assured him with a pat on the back, which just made Ben grumble even more. "At least now you can switch between powers without waiting for a full recharge. The DNA samples recharge whenever they aren't in use, and independently of each other as well, so once you get the hang of swapping out or combining your powers as needed you'll likely never run out of options."

"...I guess I can live with that." Ben begrudgingly accepted the new pros and cons to his powers, only to jolt in surprise and excitement once he realized exactly what Paradox had said. "Wait a second...I can COMBINE my powers now?!" He grinned excitedly as he infused Diamondhead DNA into his right arm, and Bloxx DNA into his back. When the Bloxx-lobber extended to his Diamondhead arm, the two different parts radically changed. The Bloxx-lobber was now made entirely of crystals, from the pack sprouting crystal spikes like those from Diamondhead's back, to the cracked crystal ammo belt, to the large spike-shaped gun on his arm with a small opening where the point would normally be. Turning his attention to a nearby tree, Ben braced himself as the ammo belt began feeding itself into the gun, firing shards that rapidly shredded the tree at a rate like minigun fire. "Oh yeah!" He gave a hearty fist pump as he put his DNA weapons away. "I could get used to this! I wonder what else I can do..." His mind began spinning at the possibilities this new ability presented.

"Your new armor is not lacking for special features either." Paradox explained as if he were a teacher talking addressing an eager student with many questions. "In addition to shifting and adapting to accommodate your powers, the armor also has a triple layered personal defense array. Take a look at the gauges to your right on the HUD now." Doing as Paradox suggested, Ben noticed two bars and a humanoid figure stretching from near the top of his field of vision to near the bottom; one line blue, one line purple, and the figure in orange. "The figure in orange represents the structural integrity of your armor. As it gets damaged, the parts of the figure change from light-orange to dark-red, before eventually going completely black when that part of your armor forces itself into auto-repair mode, retracting it into the rest of the suit. The blue gauge represents the current charge in your shield generators. They run on the same technology that the majority of this galaxy uses in everyday life, so installing any upgrades or fuel cells you need in order to recharge it should be simple enough. The purple gauge is where things got a little...tricky, shall we say."

"Define _tricky_." Ben questioned uneasily, knowing well that Paradox had a bad habit of greatly over- or under- reacting or emphasizing, depending on whichever he thought would be funnier.

"Celestialsapien DNA is far more complex and powerful than human DNA, so splicing them together and keeping the resulting combination stable required a little...direct intervention." Paradox explained as he held up his mechanical hand, a hologram of a microchip being projected from his palm. "I had to implant this microchip into the nerves on your third vertebrae, so as to keep your Celestialsapien DNA from overwhelming your body, and making you explode with enough force to destroy half a galaxy." Ben gulped in fear as he held the back of his neck protectively. "Not to worry Ben, Azmuth created and installed the chip himself. Your neck will break or be removed much more easily than it will." The professor explained in his usual chipper mood, trying and failing miserably to put Ben at ease - a potentially deliberate joke on his part. "The chip in your neck also eases your transformations slightly, as unregulated genetic shifts are often quite painful. Furthermore, it funnels the excess energy normally generated by your Celestialsapien DNA into an extra barrier of protection over the armor and its own shields during battle, with the energy levels of the barrier measured by the purple gauge I mentioned earlier."

"You're really pulling out all the stops with my powers, aren't you Paradox?" Ben grinned as he flexed his fingers a few times, a faint glimmer around every square inch of his body signifying that his shields were active. "I didn't know it was my birthday." He joked playfully, at least until the literal implication of his sarcasm hit him. "Wait a minute...I'm a clone, so it technically is my birthday!"

"Feel free to experiment with the possibilities later Ben." Paradox brought him back down to Earth, or whatever planet they were currently on at least. "Right now you need to focus on why you I brought you here."

"You brought me here?" Ben questioned Paradox quizzically. "I thought you said that I landed in this dimension by accident when some bad guys set off some kind of weird bomb."

"You and many other Bens were CREATED and scattered RANDOMLY across the omniverse by the quantum entanglement bomb." Paradox corrected his false assumption. "I am the one who chose which universes you would each best fit in with and co-benefit from, and brought each of you to your new home accordingly. Unfortunately, as Eon was one of the Negative 10 who tried to kill the original Ben with temporal technology he knew next to nothing about, he was able to create backdoors for each of his tenuous allies to follow the various Ben replicas into their new homes."

"There's the catch I was waiting for." Ben snapped his fingers playfully. "I knew there had to be something big to worry about other than all this stuff about me being a clone. So what kind of baddies am I looking at here? Animo, Forever Knights, don't tell me they let Darkstar in on the party." He paused to scratch his head. "Something about being a clone must have scrambled my recent memories a bit, because I'm drawing a total blank on who the original me was fighting when I was...born?" He remarked, uncertain as to what he should call the bizarre means by which he had come into existence.

"The new Negative 10 consisted of Malware, who had completely fused with and taken over Vilgax on a cellular level." Paradox began, causing Ben to wince at the mention of two of his most dangerous enemies fusing together, and with the more mentally unstable of the two calling the shots no less. "Eon of course, or else there would be little to no risk of any of them following you. Then there's Zs'Skayr, who somehow ended up being completely fused with one alternate version of you, and becoming a voice in his head urging, but not compelling or controlling him to commit heinous atrocities." Ben immediately felt bad for that version of himself, whoever he was. "And also Albedo, Servantis, Kundo, Dr. Animo, Adwaita, Zombozo and yes, Darkstar."

Ben let out a low whistle. "Wow, they really pulled out all the stops for this Negative 10 didn't they? I'm surprised the original Ben managed to deal with them all." He nodded in admiration for the original version of himself. "Well, all except for Darkstar at least. He's just an angstier, ruder, uglier, way more selfish and way less powerful or competent version of Kevin from back when we didn't get along." He amended mockingly. "So which of the baddies followed me here? Gotta know who I'm gonna be up against." He grinned eagerly as he started shadowboxing to warm up.

"I am afraid I can't say for certain. Eon has covered their tracks far too well for me to identify which, if any, of the Negative 10 came here, but I assure you that your old foes will be the least of your concern in this universe." That got Ben's immediate attention. Despite his joking attitude, Ben knew that any one of those baddies in the new Negative 10 would be a nightmare by themselves - literally in some cases! If even Paradox thought that any one of those frankly terrifying super villains was small potatoes compared to the threats of this new universe, then Ben knew he better start listening seriously.

"Alright, you've got my undivided attention." Ben remarked in the most serious attitude he could muster. "Now talk."

"When you looked out over the fields, did you happen to notice a spaceship shaped like an enormous cuttlefish?" Paradox gestured over at the giant ship in question.

"Kinda hard to miss it." Ben remarked casually. "So I take it I have to take down whoever's driving it?"

"That and so much more I'm afraid." Paradox shook his head ruefully. "I can't get into the intimate details just yet, but suffice to say you'll have your hands quite full for the next few years." Ben's eyes widened in shock when Paradox said _years_. "Try not to be so surprised Ben, not all of your problems can be solved in just half an hour after all." The professor chuckled at his inside joke, which just confused Ben. "I'm afraid I can't give away too much - spoilers, you know - but I do have four pieces of advice that will be vital for your success." He spoke seriously as he counted the points off on his prosthetic. "First of all, this may be the Milky Way, but it is not _your_ Milky Way, Ben, so no one here knows anything about you. If you want to have any influence in this galaxy, you'll have to convince them you're someone worth listening to. Which, considering your powers are far beyond anything that anyone in this galaxy has ever seen, shouldn't be too hard if you can make-up a nice cover story for your abilities."

"Second, and I cannot stress this enough, is that, contrary to your usual live-and-let-live philosophy, there will come times where you have to take lives, or even make the conscious decision to sacrifice someone else, for the sake of saving everyone." If Ben was in _serious mode_ before, now he looked ready for war. Unlike the Saturday morning cartoons he was raised on, Ben was no stranger to murdering his enemies. He didn't particularly _like_ that part of the job, but he knew it had to be done sometimes, or at least _attempted_ , as many of his bad guys had a nasty habit of cheating death. Sacrificing others however...Ben didn't like the idea of that, especially in light of how he almost resorted to killing Kevin once when he was forced to give into his dark side, and he'd fight tooth and nail to try and avoid that. Still, Paradox wouldn't have brought it up if it wasn't important.

"Third, when you get to the Citadel, the first thing you should do after dealing with its insufferable Council is look for Quasar. And forth don't try to bring out your big guns until Virmire. Ta ta!" Paradox remarked, back in his usual jovial tone, disappearing without giving Ben time to ask who the hell Quasar was, or who, what, where, or when the hell Virmire was.

"You'd think a guy who can travel through time would have a little more patience for others." Ben grumbled before the sound of gunfire drew his attention. "Speaking of time, I don't have any to spare!" He snapped into hero mode as he sprouted Stinkfly's wings. "Going Hero!" He declared as he flew off in the direction of the gunfire.

 **...**

 **Meanwhile - Eden Prime Spaceport**

Jane Shepard considered herself to be a soldier of strong principals, dedication, and moral compass. Whether it was repelling a Batarian slave raid that severely outnumbered her on Elysium almost single-handed early in her career, retaliating violently for Elysium with admittedly costly but necessary tactics against another batch of Batarian slavers on Torfan, or surviving a Thresher Maw attack on Akuze that tragically cost the rest of her unit at the time their lives, two things remained consistent through it all: She never gave up, and never let anyone or anything get to her.

Seeing an enormous, clearly unregistered dreadnaught shaped like a giant metal squid attacking Eden Prime, having one of her ground team killed just moments after landing, finding Geth impaling innocent colonists on spikes that turned them into robot zombies - or Husks, as she had taken to calling them - and finding Nihlus - a veteran Spectre - dead at the traitorous hands of his former mentor Saren, had certainly pushed her temper and suspension of disbelief, but not beyond anything her mind couldn't process.

What she witnessed next changed all that.

"Eat crystals you robot invaders!" A voice called - _loudly,_ Shepard noted with mild disdain - from above, as the Geth she was about to shoot down were quickly shredded to pieces by a barrage of DIAMONDS of all things!

"What the hell?!" Shepard couldn't help but question as she followed the barrage to its point of origin, and saw, of all things, a fully armored man flying quickly in their direction, with an obscenely large gun and bandoleer made of more diamonds!

"Incoming!" The man shouted as the bandoleer disappeared into his back, and the diamond gun turned into a diamond arm and sword, which immediately found itself lodged in the torso of the last Geth standing. "Oh yeah! Who's your hero!?" The man boasted loudly as he pulled the sword from the Geth, retracted what Shepard could now see were large insect wings into his back, and turned his arm and sword into a normal arm.

Shaking the stars and shock from her vision, Shepard approached the man and asked the only question she could think of. "Who or...what the hell are you?!" She questioned, not fully aware if the sky was still above her and the ground still beneath her.

"Funny, you're the forth person to ask me that exact same question today." The man joked as he casually stretched his arms above his head. "The name's Ben Tennyson. I'm just your average, genetically engineered, shapeshifting ambassador-slash-hero from the galaxy you call Andromeda." He explained as if it were no big deal, further stunning Shepard at the absurdity of the claim. "Speaking of which, can we hold all further questions until _after_ we take down all these evil robots that are killing people? We're kind of working against the clock here."

Shocked beyond belief for the second time in as many minutes, she didn't even have time to pull herself together to respond before the shapeshifter - Ben Tennyson, Shepard had to remind herself - took off running in the direction of the Prothean Beacon.

"Commander...what do we do here?" Ashley Williams asked her uncertainly, the impromptu tag-along just as shocked and confused as she was. "This seems like a First Contact situation, but..."

To her credit, Shepard was quick to get her bearings again. "The mission is still the same as before: Get to the Prothean Beacon before the Geth and Saren can. We'll just have a little more back-up now."

"More like he has more back-up." Kaiden Alenko remarked as they struggled to keep up with Ben Tennyson. "Just look at how fast these Geth and Husks are dying."

"Not fast enough!" Ashley protested as she opened fire on a Geth that Ben hadn't destroyed. "The fool's leaving a lot of stragglers that could shoot him in the back."

Shepard had to admit that her fellow biotic and the Gunnery Chief both had good points. Even taking point, this Ben Tennyson fellow was demolishing any Geth that came anywhere near him with a pair of yellow, pile-driver/drill hybrids that replaced his earlier diamond arm/gun, but wasn't paying much attention to the ones that weren't in his way. Shepard would be upset at this blatant suicidal mad charge if she didn't see what he was really doing. "His shields seem pretty damn tough, and he's clearing a path and making the Geth follow him into a chokepoint. That's not foolish, that's good tactics." Shepard corrected her squadmate as she and her team began picking off the Geth from behind with relative ease.

"Does he even know where he's going?" Kaiden asked curiously as he and Ashley concentrated fire on a nearby Geth until it was down for the count.

"He's going the same direction we are and clearing a path for us, that's all that matters right now." Shepard replied with ease as the spaceport's freight train came into view. "We can ask him a few quick questions once we're on the freight train headed for Saren and the Beacon, but until then we follow his lead." She instructed brusquely, leaving no room for argument. _He's an unknown, and I don't like unknowns. Still, I can't afford to be too picky right now._

 **...**

 _Now I can see why Paradox loves showing up and saying crazy stuff all the time. Messing with people like this and seeing their reactions is so much fun!_ Ben chuckled to himself as he drove his Armadrillo arm through the torso of another robot. _Still, I probably shouldn't leave them hanging for too long. That chick with the red bob cut looked pretty dangerous...and just plain pretty._ He chuckled again as he changed his arms to Wildvine's, wrapped up a robot and a robot-zombie in his vine whips, and smashed them together before throwing them off a ledge. "Aaaand...TOUCHDOWN!" He cheered as he jumped dramatically onto an obvious tram if Ben ever saw one.

"Glad someone is enjoying themselves in all this death and destruction." One of the group Ben had passed earlier - a woman with wavy black hair - remarked with oozing sarcasm and thinly-veiled disdain as she and her two...teammates, Ben wanted to say. As she and her two teammates got on the tram with him, and the only man in their trio started fiddling with the controls.

 _Glad they're here to deal with this tech stuff, and hopefully know where they're going._ Ben thought in relief. _Even with that giant metal squid being a big, obvious target in the sky, I was only half sure I was going the right way at all._ He straightened his back as the redhead from earlier approached him, most likely the leader of their squad based on the way she carried herself. "Hello again, I'm guessing you have a lot of questions for me?"

"That's putting it mildly." The redhead remarked sarcastically as the tram began moving, before switching back to serious. "I'm Commander Jane Shepard, of the Systems Alliance, and this is my team; Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams." She gestured to the man and woman with her respectively. "First of all, since we're so pressed for time right now, I have to ask for the sake of clarity; are you REALLY an ambassador from the Andromeda Galaxy?"

"Can the people from this galaxy do this?" Ben grinned as he activated his Fourarms DNA, flexing his muscular red arms in multiple standard bodybuilder poses, two at a time. _Looks like that was the right cover story to go with. Based on their reactions, and the way Paradox said I was in a new universe, while talking about galaxies when referring to the locals, it looks like these people have only gotten as far as mastering interstellar travel, not intergalactic travel._ He thought in relief as he changed his arms back.

"No, no we cannot." Shepard nodded, still looking somewhat skeptical, but accepting the situation nonetheless. "Sorry about the circumstances, ordinarily First Contact with a new species is a much more civil affair than a battlefield."

"That's perfectly fine, I actually came here to help take down that giant, metal, space squid." Ben politely brushed aside her apologies as he pointed to the massive ship. "Taking down an evil alien invader that turns innocent people into robot zombies seems like a good way to make a first impression."

"That's not exactly normal behavior for ambassadors." Ashley remarked with some suspicion.

"Not for us, but maybe this is just how they do things in Andromeda." Kaiden was nice enough to give him the benefit of a doubt. "Like he said, first impressions are important, and what better impression is there than saving people?"

"You I like. Her, not so much." Ben gestured to Kaiden and Ashley respectively, pleasantly amused by both of their reactions.

"You seem very...forward for an ambassador." Shepard noted curiously.

"What can I say? Not all politicians are shady, power-hungry jerks." Ben shrugged nonchalantly. "My approach is actually perfectly normal by Andromeda standards. Maybe a little more adventurous than most, but we're a lot more open with our emotions than people in your galaxy seem to be." Of course Ben had no way of knowing what politics in Andromeda were _really_ like, if they even had a centralized galactic government to begin with, but he figured that the lie he concocted would help him cut through a lot of the red tape that normally plagued politics, especially if the idea of an extra-galactic ambassador was as politically groundbreaking as the soldiers in front of him led him to believe.

"And you know about our politics, how exactly?" Ashley questioned, trying - poorly - to sound impartial and open-minded. Shepard sent her a quick but strict glare that clearly meant for her to mind her manners.

"Flash training." Ben tapped the side of his helmet covered head. "Growing up in a tube didn't exactly give me much time for study, so my creators put a bunch of information they gathered about this galaxy directly into my brain for this job." Ben was _extremely_ grateful that he was technically telling half-truths, and that his helmet did a good job obscuring his face from view, otherwise a keenly train eye could easily spot his left eye twitching. _Gonna have to work on that if I'm gonna get into politics here._ He thought to himself ruefully, already regretting going with politician as his cover story.

"I was about to ask about what you meant by being genetically engineered actually." Shepard nodded curiously as she noticed out of the corner of her eye that their destination was fast approaching, needing to wrap this conversation up for now, but wanting to know more about their increasingly curious new guest. "Unfortunately, it seems that further questions will have to wait until after the mission."

"No problem, I'm sure we could have at it for hours once we save the day." Ben replied gracefully as he channeled Diamondhead's DNA, creating a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, and a second helmet over his first one. _I almost can't believe that worked!_ He thought excitedly as he rushed forward and started blocking bullets with his shield, so he could charge in close and cut the robots down to size with his sword.

"Demolition charges! The Geth must have planted them." Kaiden cursed under his breath, drawing Ben's attention away from his robot targets.

"Hurry! We need to find them all, and shut them down!" Ashley reacted immediately as well.

"Hold up Ben, Saren and his Geth set up bombs strong enough to blow this entire colony to pieces!" Shepard called for the hero to wait. "I need some help keeping the Geth and the Husks away while I disarm them all." She paused in her work to looked over her shoulder and see Ben already beheading one Geth before throwing his sword through another that was sneaking up on Kaiden, while providing cover for Ashley by expanding his shield. _He works with them both so easily, like he's done this sort of thing before. That can't just be flash training, immediate synergy like that has to be practiced several times with just as many different people before it becomes that natural. Who or what are you really, Ben Tennyson?_ Putting her suspicions aside for the moment, the commander got back to disarming the bomb. "It's disarmed! I'm getting readings from three other charges though." She called out as she and the rest of her team pressed onward and upward towards the stairs and across the scaffold.

"Only three?" Ben remarked with no small amount of mirth, changing his loadout from Diamondhead DNA to his Feedback arms. "They've gotta be joking. Do they really think so little of us?" He chuckled slightly as he plugged his fingers into a pair of downed Geth, draining their batteries, and then activating his Bloxx-lobber. The resulting fusion of DNA looked like a black and gold car battery with a similarly colored lightning rod extending straight up on his back, with a DC power connector joining the pack to his right forearm, which now looked vaguely like a sniper rifle with a two pronged DC plug on the end of the barrel. With a quick eye and a steady hand, Ben tested out his new weapon on some Geth on the next scaffold over that were pelting his shields with sniper rounds, overloading them both with a single, high-voltage shot to the very scaffold bridge they were using for cover and a sniper perch. "I am really liking this!" He grinned as he swung his gun around to take aim at another couple of Geth he was fast approaching. Unfortunately, his grin quickly gave way to shock when his weapon wouldn't fire. "Are you kidding me?! I used up my whole charge in that one shot! Ow, ow, OW!" He panicked and ducked behind cover as the bullets really started wearing down his shields, leaving the rest of the squad chuckling softly at how comical his retreat was. "...Not one word." He pouted at their amused expressions as he powered down his DNA for a recharge.

"Just glad to see that you apparently have _some_ shortcomings." Ashley quipped as she resumed firing her assault rifle on the Geth.

"Yeah, at the rate you were going up until now, you were liable to put us out of work." Kaiden added as he used a biotic throw a slightly damaged Geth into a wall with extreme force, leaving it an easy target for Shepard to finish it off with a single well placed headshot.

"What do First Contact protocols say about behavior again?" Shepard quizzed her squadmates strictly as she reached the end of the bridge and began to disarm bomb number two.

"Assume peaceful and be respectful until proven otherwise." Kaiden sighed in resignation, sad that he couldn't keep teasing their new...teammate? None of them were entirely certain how exactly Ben fit into their admittedly improvised team dynamics, much less if he was going to be working with them for long. After all, if he really is an ambassador from Andromeda, he's probably gonna be spending a lot of time on the Citadel, working with the Council. Which, given his obvious preference for the direct approach, would definitely be a sight to see.

"Sorry Commander, it won't happen again." Ashley hung her head in shame, utterly mortified to have been caught up in Ben's boisterous and easygoing pace and forgetting that he was technically the biggest VIP in the galaxy at the moment.

"Eh, I'm already over it." Ben shrugged as he turned his arms into Wildvine whips and charged forward from cover to cover, lashing out at two Geth, but only managing to hit one of them, and send it crashing to the ground in a half-broken heap. "More or less." He amended sheepishly as he ducked behind a wall as the Geth he missed began firing on him.

"I have _so many_ questions I want to ask you when we're done here." Shepard shook her head as she began disarming bomb number three, which was coincidentally in the same little alcove Ben was using for cover as he tried to angle his whips around to smack the Geth off the elevated walkway, only managing to succeed on the third attempt after getting to cover.

"Do you mean that in a good way or a bad way?" Ben inquired curiously as he turned his arms back to normal, before turning them red, ripped, and growing an extra pair again. "I can work with either, I just wanna know ahead of time so I can be ready."

"Not the time for this conversation, Ben." Shepard brushed his lax attitude about this whole chaotic situation aside for the moment, choosing to instead focus on both her main mission, and her own private observations of the extra-galactic ambassador thus far. _He's clearly far more advanced than any genetic modifiers in our galaxy, and he says he was literally made for his job. Just what kind of civilization does he represent?_ She thought to herself as they came to both the final bomb, and the turnoff to where the beacon was located. Deciding to let the politicians deal with this bullshit, she put such thoughts and concerns to the back of her mind.

"Alright, I've disabled the last of the bombs! Let's go get that beacon!" Shepard barked the new orders even as Ben rushed forward, trading his four red arms for his diamond weapons and armor as he charged at the nearest Geth. "Do you even know what we're looking for, Ben?!" She found herself paraphrasing Kaiden's earlier question in exasperation as she and her team followed after him.

"Not really!" Ben admitted without any trace of shame as he decapitated a Geth. "I just figured I'd keep fighting robots until they led me to something big and important looking." He added nonchalantly as he beheaded two Husks in a row, before spotting the Beacon out of the corner of his eye. "Found it!...I think." He shrugged as the rest of the team finished off the Geth and Husks, Ben changing back to his default form as they did so.

"Job well done team." Shepard sighed tiredly - from both the physical exhaustion of fighting several waves of Geth and those Husks, and the mental exhaustion of trying to keep up with Ben's...unusual pace and enthusiasm - as she approached the Prothean Beacon. "Now let's get this Prothean Beacon out of...my god!" She gasped as she and her team saw the massive scorch marks left by the Geth ship. "One ship caused that much damage just by landing and taking off?" She stared and the massive circle of scorched earth in awe and hatred, with more of the latter than the former.

"I'd hate to see what it looks like in battle." Kaiden shook his head nervously.

"I've seen a small taste of what it can do." Ashley scowled with vitriol in her voice. "Trust me, it's not the kind of ship you want within a hundred lightyears of you."

Just as the implications of this battle - _no, not a battle, a massacre._ Jane corrected herself - started to sink into the commander, something immediately cut in on her brooding.

"Uh...guys?" Ben remarked nervously, drawing their attention to him standing in front of the now active Prothean Beacon. "This antenna thing started glowing when I got near it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" He queried as he struggled against the pull towards the Beacon he was feeling.

Acting before she had time to think, Shepard rushed forward and yanked Ben away from the Prothean Beacon, unwilling to allow a VIP - no matter how tough of body, or annoying of personality - to come to potential harm on her watch. Unfortunately, after pulling Ben away, Shepard found herself being pulled toward the Prothean Beacon herself.

"Jane!" Ben panicked as he instinctively reached for his Omnitrix, only to curse under his breath when he remembered he didn't have it anymore. Before he could mentally activate a set of DNA however, a bright light from the device momentarily blinded him, Kaiden, and Ashley.

What was just a bright light to them however, was actually a massive overload of information being beamed directly into Shepard's skull. The transfer only lasted a few seconds of real time, but to Jane it felt as though hours of trauma had passed by, with no point of reference to keep it all straight. Once all the information was messily transferred into her mind, the Beacon exploded, dropping her to the ground with an unceremonious thud. Before she passed out completely, the last thing she saw was Ben removing his helmet for some reason, surprising her buy just how...human he looked.

 **...**

 **Meanwhile - Saren's Ship: Location Unknown**

A voluptuous Asari dressed in an elaborate black attire cleared her throat to gain the attention of the cyborg Turian she approached. "We identified the ship that touched down on Eden Prime." She began speaking in a monotone almost as mechanical as her companion. "The Normandy. A Human Alliance vessel. It was under the command of Captain Anderson." She continued as the Turian made a pyramid with his fingers in contemplation. "They managed to save the colony."

"And the Beacon?" The Turian immediately interjected, not wanting to waste valuable time on what he considered to be insignificant detail.

"One of the humans may have used it." The Asari answered in the same robotic monotone, causing the Turian to snarl and shift in agitation, seemingly muttering to himself to quickly and quietly to be anything discernible as language. Ultimately, the Turian settled on savage snarling and breaking his furniture, eventually grabbing the unmoved Asari threateningly by the face. "There was also another...unforeseen complication." The Asari continued as though she were not being threatened, hesitating only slightly, as if she was actually uncertain what to make of this recent development. "Apparently, the humans were aided by a vastly powerful shapeshifting ambassador from the Andromeda Galaxy." Her words actually seemed to get through to the clearly insane Turian, causing him to step back in shock. "...The ambassador is currently traveling with the rest of the Normandy crew to the Citadel. How should we respond to this development?" Her monotone took on a slight uncertainty as she asked.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, the Turian didn't hesitate in his response. "This human must be eliminated." He declared coldly. "As for the ambassador...we will have to wait for more data to make a decision. Whether they are an asset or an enemy to us will determine their ultimate fate." He concluded before storming off.

 **And so it begins...**

 **Before anyone asks: Yes, I really do have a well thought out plan for the entire original trilogy. Yes, it's going to be a harem story. No, I will not tell you who all will be in it. Yes, I will be changing several minor and major details of the canon storyline, with exponentially more details being changed as the story progresses. Yes, at least one of the Negative 10 I mentioned will be making an appearance. No, I won't tell you who they will be, or when they might appear. Yes & No, I will be doing some DLC content, but not all of it.**

 **No & Yes, I don't yet have an exact plan for Andromeda, but I do have a rough idea I'm hammering out. Yes, Andromeda will be a harem story as well. Unfortunately, due to Andromeda most likely being the last in the Mass Effect Franchise, and because the original Mass Effect creation team has mostly left the series, if not the entire company, there will be nothing beyond that unless I make up something myself. I make no promises though, because this is gonna be a LONG story, divided into at least FOUR different stories, and I have no idea how I'm gonna feel about a continuation once I get that far.**

 **Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of Mass Effect 10: Part 1. Sorry if a lot of it was exposition, but I had to get that all out of the way early so I could focus on the story itself. I try to keep a buffer of at least a few chapters completed ahead of time, so you can expect chapter 2 to come out relatively soon. I'll try to keep to a schedule of at least one chapter every other week, so stay tuned!**


	2. Chapter 2

**For those of you who had some lingering questions regarding the first chapter, let me just clarify a few things. First, yes, I did give Jane Shepard all three military service histories. I figure if I'm making the best Mass Effect/Ben 10 story I can, I may as well make the best Shepard I can. Second, should I put little quotes and/or news stories from in-universe sources in the beginning of each chapter. Follow-up question, should I put in Codex entries Ben makes up about life in Andromeda at the end of each chapter? I figure that it would serve as a good flavoring for you fans, and a way to get more people interested in Andromeda (and subsequently The Andromeda Initiative) in-universe. Let me know what you think in the reviews.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 2

Council and Keepers

"Rise and shine Sleeping Beauty, your prince charming awaits." A voice that Jane couldn't quite place but found surprisingly familiar was the first thing she heard as she began to stir from a sleep she didn't remember entering. As the Alliance Marine forced herself upright and rubbed her eyes in exhaustion, Dr. Chakwas approached her.

"You had us worried there, Shepard." The silver-haired doctor remarked playfully. "How are you feeling?"

"...I had the craziest dream." Was the only response Jane could muster as her memories began to settle in ways too unbelievable to be possible. "There were Geth...putting people on spikes and turning them into robot zombies...and a shapeshifting ambassador from the Andromeda...galaxy." She trailed off awkwardly as she noticed said shapeshifter standing by her bedside.

"While I'm flattered to hear that you're having dreams about me," Ben, a being that Shepard had thought was only a figment of her imagination, remarked as he walked into her peripheral vision, no longer wearing his face obscuring helmet. "All of that stuff actually happened."

Staring flabbergasted at the very human looking extra-galactic ambassador, Jane sank back into a sitting position as the realization of what happened sank in. Deciding to avoid the really hard questions for now, she focused on the immediate hard facts. "How long was I out for?"

"About fifteen hours." Dr. Chakwas answered clinically. "Something happened down there with the Beacon, I think."

"Yeah, that was my bad." Ben apologized sheepishly. "Probably shouldn't have gotten too close to alien technology I wasn't familiar with. You'd think I would know better, what with how much my flash training focused on things like it."

"Don't worry about it." Shepard hurried to put him at ease, not wanting to accidentally offend the VIP that had been dropped in her lap. "You may be tough, but you're also an important dignitary. As a soldier of the Systems Alliance, it's my duty to ensure your safety and well-being."

"Funny, where I come from leaders are both expected and made to be the toughest of the bunch, literally in some cases." Ben accepted her apology to his apology by making a joke. For some reason, based on just the short time they've known each other, Shepard couldn't imagine him acting any other way. "Let's just agree that neither of us is responsible for that really important alien relic you were supposed to retrieve getting destroyed, and blame the whole thing on this Saren guy once we get to the Citadel. I'm supposed to head there as part of my mission anyway."

"That's an idea I can get behind." Shepard grimaced as her mind quickly caught up with current events. "I just hope that they'll believe the whole story. I can barely believe it, and I've seen what you can do as proof."

"Yeah, I am pretty special, aren't I?" Ben chuckled before his expression turned a mixture of serious and awkward. "I just hope that they don't get upset about what happened with the Beacon. I'm trying to make a good first impression, and so far the jury's out on whether or not I'm doing a good job...What did happen back there anyway? The doc says that your body is working okay, but that your mind is a little...meh."

Shepard winced as she looked down at her open palms in contemplation. "I'm not really sure what I saw...Death...Destruction...whatever it was...it was horrifying."

"Hmm, interesting." Dr. Chakwas scratched her chin thoughtfully. "I'd better add this to my report, it may-oh, Captain Anderson." The good doctor interrupted herself as she noted the approaching military leader.

"How's our XO and our...dignitary holding up, doctor?" The well-seasoned veteran, David Anderson, inquired with only a hint of hesitation as he strode up otherwise calm.

Ben, for his part, sighed tiredly at the continued hovering he was getting as Dr. Chakwas and Captain Anderson discussed the medical condition of himself and Shepard, despite the cloned hero having come out of the attack on Eden Prime completely unscathed, especially compared to Jane. _I know my cover story is pretty extraordinary, but I could do without all the hovering. It's like they think I'm made of glass or something._ Ben's internal musings were interrupted when Anderson addressed him directly.

"Excuse me, Ambassador Tennyson?" David addressed him politely. "Please don't take offense to what I'm about to ask. I know you've been watching over her since you brought her to the ship, but was wondering if I might have a word with Shepard in private?"

"My screw-up is the reason Jane's mission went to pieces." Ben politely rebutted, not feeling at all offended by the military man's request, having grown quite fond of the man in the short time he's known him. "Well, part of the reason anyway. If she's gonna get in trouble, I have a responsibility to make sure I know what kind of trouble it's gonna be, so I can help her out of it if at all possible. Before you ask, yes, this is how things usually work in Andromeda politics." He smirked protectively as he schooled his left eye into not twitching.

"Alright, I suppose your presence can help out in this matter." David nodded in acceptance before turning his attention to Shepard, impressed by the lying hero's sense of accountability. "Now I hear that beacon hit you pretty hard Commander. Are you doing okay?"

"I'm pretty damn pissed off at the Geth." Shepard scowled, not at all concerned that she was swearing in the presence of the biggest VIP in the galaxy. Ben had clearly shown himself to be pretty lax both on and off the battlefield by now, so she didn't think she'd offend him easily. "What they did to the colony, Jenkins, everybody...but I'll process that all later, you said you wanted to talk with me about something?" She shoved down her anger to focus on debriefing for the moment.

"I'm not gonna lie to you Shepard, things look pretty hectic." David stood straight and strong despite the situation. "On the downside; Nihilus is dead, the Beacon was destroyed, and the Geth are invading. On the upside, we have the first confirmed contact with an extra-galactic ambassador in Council history." He nodded respectfully at Ben, who returned in kind. "The Council is going to want answers about everything, and lots of them."

"We have nothing to hide from anyone." Shepard frowned as she barely maintained her discipline. "The Geth arrived with Saren to take the Beacon, and turn innocent colonists into those...Husks!" Her demeanor slipped for a fraction of a second, before slipping back into place. "Then Ben showed up and helped up stop them."

"And I ended up accidentally destroying the Beacon at the end." Ben interjected his two credits, raising a hand in a halting motion to preemptively cut off Shepard's attempt to protest. "Don't try to deny it. I was the one who got too close to that thing, I'm the one who'll take the blame. Besides, if even half the stuff Joker told me about the Council while we were waiting for you to wake up is true, they're more likely to apologize to me just to butter up the new guy on the block before they try to stab me in the back."

"I wouldn't put too much stock into what Joker says." Jane retorted playfully. "He's not exactly the most credible person on this ship."

"Maybe not, but he definitely tells it like it is." Ben grinned as he remembered his first conversations with the crew. "The moment I told everyone on this ship who and what I was, and proved it to them of course, Joker was the first one to break the ice. You wanna know what he said?" He chuckled in a tone that clearly showed he couldn't hold it in. "He said: _Well shit, I guess this means I'm the second most interesting person in the galaxy now._ That guy's hilarious!"

"All joking aside though, this is still a serious matter." Anderson interrupted, bringing Ben out of his giggling fit. "Saren's a SPECTRE, one of the best, a living legend." He spoke with reluctant reverence, making Ben think he had some personally bad experience with the man. "But if he's working with the Geth, it means he's gone rogue. A rogue SPECTRE's trouble. Saren's dangerous, and he hates humans."

"So he comes to Eden Prime to kill innocent humans and take the Beacon?" Ben scowled, the explanation not sounding any better than what he hypothesized earlier. "I don't care how dangerous this Saren guy _thinks_ he is, because I _know_ that I can take him down!" He grinned as he shifted his right arm into a flaming mace, then changing it back once he'd made his point.

"I can't say I'm familiar with how things work in Andromeda, but here in the Milky Way we're going to need proof before we can move against Saren." David shook his head bitterly. "Before it exploded, the Beacon showed you something Shepard. Is there anything you can tell me about it? It might be a lead to what Saren wants."

To her credit, Shepard didn't miss a beat when all eyes went on her. "...I saw a vision...of synthetics attacking organics...the Geth maybe?"

"I doubt it." Ben shook his head skeptically. "If that vision came from a 50,000 year old Beacon, they how could it show you robots that have only existed for 300 years?" Shepard blinked twice in stunned silence at Ben. "...What? I haven't just been watching you sleep for fifteen hours straight. That would just be creepy, and I needed to look into this _codex_ that has all the major information your galaxy has to offer on it. Gotta say, compared to the information my flash training provided me on this galaxy while I was being grown in my vat of cloning gel, you guys are hiding quite a bit of information that you really shouldn't be." He punctuated his subtle - albeit secretly empty - blackmail threat against the Council he hadn't even met yet with a sly wink of his left eye. "Anyway, if I know politics - and considering I was _literally_ made to be a politician, I think I do - then my word might get you in the door, but we're gonna need more than that and a foggy vision to convince these people to sell out one of their best agents."

"My thoughts exactly, minus the blackmail threats at least." David nodded ruefully. "The fact that we don't know what information was on that Beacon is a major factor, Shepard. It could be a weapon, a battleship, or who knows what else. Saren has that information, and I know Saren hates humans. He thinks we're a blight on the galaxy, and need to be wiped out. If he has his way with that information, he'll be able to do it."

"And politicians in this galaxy wonder why nobody trusts them with guys like this on their payroll." Ben shook his head. "Don't get me wrong, Andromeda has its fair share of political and military strife too, but it's usually only when an entire species is genocidal or racist that people like Saren are allowed to rise to any sort of power."

"And now I know something about Andromeda politics that I didn't know before." Shepard joked before quickly saluting her CO. "I'll do everything I can to expose Saren for the traitor he is."

"I hope so Commander, at ease." Anderson nodded. "I've already contacted the human ambassador to request an audience with the Council. We should be arriving at the Citadel shortly, why don't you two go up to the bridge and tell Joker to bring up into dock?" He bid them farewell before leaving the medbay, leaving Ben and Jane to their own devices.

Once they were alone, Jane turned her attention to Ben. "...So, you were watching me while I slept?" She smirked playfully.

"Only for some of the time." Ben corrected her as they set out for the bow of the ship, the doors opening with a _woosh_ as they approached. "I also spent a lot of time getting to know the crew and reading the Codex, remember?"

"What are your thoughts on the crew?" Shepard asked curiously as she took the lead.

"Eh, most of them are pretty forgettable to be honest." Ben shrugged before waving at Ashley Williams as they passed her. "Not Joker, Kaiden, Ashley, Chakwas, or Anderson though, they're all pretty memorable. I got to know them all pretty well while you were unconscious."

"Williams isn't part of my crew." Shepard thought out loud absently.

"Anderson took her on." Ben informed her casually as they approached the stairs. "He said that after what happened on Eden Prime, he thought it would be a good idea to have anyone with experience at dealing with the Geth and those...Husks with us."

" _Us_?" Shepard halted, causing Ben to bump into her. "What do you mean, _us_? I thought you were here as an ambassador. You'll be working with the Council, won't you?"

"That's not how politics work in Andromeda." Ben shook his head with a comforting grin. "Where I come from, politician and hero are synonymous. When it comes down to beating bad guys and saving people, or debating laws a legislation for hours on end...well, let's just say that we tend to have our priorities straight."

"That's a good way to go through a lot of politicians." Shepard noted skeptically. "And when you say _heroes_ , do you really mean..." She hesitated, not sure quite how to phrase a question that had potentially disastrous implications if said wrong.

"The best politicians are the best heroes, and vice-versa." Ben shrugged casually, as if his words were common knowledge. "Most people born or made in or by Andromeda - myself included - judge others based on actions before they judge based on words."

"If only our politicians were more like yours. The red tape can be a pain on the ass." Shepard sighed in frustration before getting back on topic and continuing up the stairs. "So, going by just the ones you can be bothered to remember, what do you think of the crew?"

"Kaiden and Ashley are total opposites for starters." Ben explained as they approached the galaxy map. "They both come from some kind of troubled background and are loyal to the Alliance, that much is clear, but they're completely different in all other regards. Kaiden is open-minded about new ideas and experiences, while Ashley is more _inside-the-lines_ and doesn't take well to anyone challenging her viewpoint. Kaiden barely hesitated to explain that his biotic implants give him migraines or that he had an evil Turian drill instructor when I asked about his past, while Ashley took quite a bit of coaxing to open up about the totally unfair treatment her family has gotten for something that I honestly think was heroic on their part. Don't think I'll be spending much time with either though, they're both too rooted in the typical soldier lifestyle and mindset for my tastes."

"What about me?" Shepard inquired playfully, surprising herself with how quickly she and her new friend were falling into a comfortable rhythm. "Am I too _soldier_ for you?"

"Can't say for sure, don't really know you that well yet." Ben shot back just as playfully. "Still, I read about your service record while you were out, and I've gotta say I'm pretty impressed...mostly anyway."

Shepard stopped again, though this time Ben halted before bumping into her. "...Let me guess, you read about Torfan, didn't you?" She inquired hesitantly.

"Don't get me wrong," Ben immediately tried to reassure her. "I get why you did what you did, and I get why it was necessary at the time...I'm just angrier that it ever had to come to that decision in the first place than anything else."

Shepard huffed out a quick laugh, impressed by how much Ben actually seemed to genuinely _care_ about a group of people he never had, nor will ever meet. "You really did just get made recently, didn't you? You can't save everyone, no matter how much you try."

"Even if I can't, I'm still gonna try, because that's the only way to know for sure." Ben countered as they resumed walking, approaching to helm as they passed through a corridor of monitors. "Anyway, Anderson and Chakwas seem pretty cool, though they did study me up and down for a few hours of tests, which was kind of annoying. Still, they've got that whole _older and wiser_ vibe to them, know what I'm saying?"

"I understand completely." Shepard nodded, feeling the same way about the two senior officers. "Still, you can't blame them for wanting to get at least a passable understanding of your body. Anderson is military, and Chakwas is medical, so they both have good reason for wanting to understand your unique biology better."

"Just don't let them take your blood. That's when you know some serious mad science shit's going down." Joker remarked conversationally as the duo entered the cockpit. "Glad to see you back on your feet commander. You and Ben actually got here at a good time, I'm about to pull us into the Citadel, see that tax-payer money at work."

"By that you mean _not working_ , don't you?" Ben joked as Joker laughed and steered them into port. "This is why I love you Joker. You get my essential Ben-ness."

Shepard, in an astonishing show of self-restraint, merely rolled her eyes playfully behind their backs. _Of all the crews, of all the ships, of all the planets, of all the systems, of all the clusters, of all the galaxies, why did I have to get stuck with the ambassador who think's he's a comedian?_

 **...**

 **Citadel - Human Embassy**

On the last leg of the trip onto the Citadel, Ben had been amazingly quiet, especially since he and Joker couldn't shut-up shortly before arriving. Shepard chalked it up to some measure of awe at the sheer size and scope of both the station itself, and the many ships flying to and fro, and patrolling it. Shepard herself had to admit that the Destiny Ascension was a pretty impressive ship, and the Citadel had many beautiful sights and sounds to experience, though she also thought that anything Ben was seeing here was probably much smaller and less impressive than anything they had back in Andromeda, assuming he came from there and wasn't grown in a vat in-transit to the Milky Way. _I still need to ask him more about how exactly he was made._ She reminded herself as she eavesdropped on Ambassador Udina bickering with the Council, apparently a common occurrence if the sound of things was anything to go by.

 _Gotta find Quasar. Gotta find out about Virmire._ Ben recited this mantra to himself for what felt like the hundredth time as Udina was dismissed by the Council and began discussing things with Anderson. _Why couldn't Paradox have given me more information to go on?_ He fumed silently as the pain and tedium of bureaucracy had quickly become apparent mere minutes after arriving at the central seat of government in this version of the Milky Way. It had gotten so bad that he had literally wandered off during Udina's bickering with the Council to the joint office of the Elcor and Volus ambassadors. The Elcor ambassador was very nice, if a little slow and awkward in his manner of speech, while the Volus ambassador had been dismissive of him initially, before quickly trying to butter him up with presents once he learned that Ben was the extra-galactic ambassador that the whole Citadel was quickly becoming abuzz about. _Gonna have to remember to look into that issue with the Consort like I promised that Elcor complaining to his ambassador, though I have no idea what I'm gonna do with all these armory licenses the Volus ambassador bought for me._ He was drawn out of his internal musings as he noticed Udina began addressing him.

"-and I'm assuming that this is the...shapeshifting, extra-galactic ambassador I've heard so much about?" Udina looked Ben up and down skeptically, eyes widening only marginally when Ben grew wings and turned his left arm into a plant and vine, before changing back once he proved his abilities. "I suppose that answers that, though I can't help wondering why take the form of a human. Not that I'm against the idea by any means, it's just..." He trailed off uncertainly, the politician seemingly coming up with absolutely nothing to say for the first time in recent memory. Not even an angry tirade could be mustered, as was so common in Udina's dealings with the Council.

"My creators charted out several thousand likely scenarios for the politics of this galaxy." Ben began his rehearsed answer to this all-too expected question. "The overwhelming majority of these scenarios involved humanity becoming the politically, economically, and culturally dominant species in this galaxy shortly after my arrival, so this was selected as my default form during my creation."

Ben's words had exactly the desired effect he'd hoped they would, as Udina's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree on fire for a brief second before he quickly schooled his features. "Well, that's...certainly a lot to take in right away." Udina struggled - and failed - to keep from sounding too excited. "I certainly look forward to working with you down the road Ambassador Tennyson, though I'm not sure if the same can be said about the Council. The fact that they aren't taking the threat Saren and his Geth poses seriously clearly shows that they aren't nearly as sound of mind as I'm certain you'll find I am."

"Likewise, I'm sure." Ben replied in an unenthused tone before casually brushing Udina aside and heading out the door. "Don't bother showing me out, I know where to find transport to the Citadel Tower."

"Did he seriously just brush aside Ambassador Udina?" Ashley whispered to Kaiden as they and Shepard followed shortly behind Ben.

"I know, pretty badass, right?" Kaiden whispered back excitedly, eliciting an eyeroll and a poorly hidden grin from his new teammate.

"Might wanna try showing the Council a bit more respect than you did to Udina just now." Shepard nudged Ben as the group made their way to the Citadel Rapid Transit System. "You've mentioned that politics in Andromeda are pretty direct, but here in the Milky Way things can be a little bit more...roundabout."

"Their loss." Ben huffed out a chuckle as they boarded the transport that was waiting for them. "Making decisions goes so much faster when you speak your mind openly."

 **...**

 **Citadel Tower - Entrance**

The short trip to the Citadel Tower had been spent in silence, each of the four oddly gathered soldiers and heroes taking the time to plan out how to present their case to the Council. While they were fairly certain that Ben's presence would help their case, they had their doubts that the Council would listen to anyone, no matter how influential, bad-mouthing and accusing their best SPECTRE of treason. As they approached the Council Chambers, they noticed two Turians arguing with each other.

"Saren's hiding something!" The first Turian - a brownish-green plated soldier in black and blue armor - seethed hotly at his colleague. "Give me more time! Stall them!"

"Stall the Council?" The other, clearly higher ranked Turian responded condescendingly. "Don't be ridiculous. Your investigation is over, Garrus." With that, the commanding officer turned sharply and strolled off.

 _I already hate that guy._ Ben thought to himself as he approached the now named Garrus. _This guy on the other hand, seems like someone worth knowing._

"Ambassador Tennyson, Commander Shepard." Garrus nodded respectfully in acknowledgement at their approach, barely phased by the presence of an extra-galactic ambassador, though perhaps he was just the type to quickly get over shock. "Garrus Vakarian, I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren."

"You don't seem too surprised to see a genetically engineered ambassador from another galaxy here." Ben shook Garrus's hand warmly. "Glad to see the shock and novelty is already wearing off. Who was that jerk you were talking to just now?" He got an elbow in the ribs from Jane for that remark. "What?" He shrugged his shoulders innocently.

"You don't beat around the bush, do you?" Garrus let out a brief chuckle. "I'll admit, when I heard that a shapeshifter from another galaxy was coming to the Citadel to talk politics with the Council, I was half-tempted to suggest the man who told me about it be committed to an asylum, but here you are. Now I'm half-tempted to tell you that you're wasting your time trying to talk politics with them and should go back to Andromeda." Once he was done joking however, his mood quickly turned dour. "To answer your question though, that was Executor Pallen, head of Citadel Security, my boss. He'll be presenting my findings on Saren to the Council." He remarked disdainfully.

"Something tells me you don't care too much for Saren, or your boss for that matter." Jane stepped in before Ben's casual attitude risked an inter-galactic incident.

"I don't trust him, Saren that is, not my boss, though everyone has at least a few complaints about their commanding officer." Garrus began explaining his bitterness. "Something about him rubs me the wrong way. But he's a SPECTRE, everything he touches is classified. I can't find any hard evidence."

"I think the Council is ready for us, Commander." Kaiden cut-in abruptly, refocusing everyone back onto the reason that brought them here.

"Good luck to you, both of you." Garrus nodded hopefully at Jane and Ben as the small squad made their way around the fountain and up the stairs toward the Council Chambers. "Maybe they'll listen to a credible eye-witness and an ambassador from another galaxy."

As they walked up to their destination, Ben made a quick analysis of their surroundings. The council clearly had a love of all things gaudy and ostentatious, judging by the decorum, and based on the raised platform he could see in the distance, they liked to show off their power in any way they could, even through something as simple and childish as a proverbial game of _King of the Hill_.

 _Haven't even met these guys in person yet, and I already don't like them._ Ben thought to himself as he idly remembered that many leaders on Earth would only speak from a higher vantage point when dealing with large civilian crowds that needed to hear them from any direction, but would usually speak from a physically lower or equal position when talking to colleagues or other VIPs, especially when addressing others in a fixed direction or in an indoor area, as was the case here. As they neared the end of the massive chamber, they noticed Anderson waiting for their arrival.

"Hearing's already started, come on." The captain addressed them promptly as he turned to walk with them, making Ben smile slightly at his directness and lack of bothersome formality.

 **...**

 **Citadel Council Chamber**

"-the Geth attack is a matter of some concern," A feminine voice noted casually in the already underway proceedings, giving Ben and Shepard an immediate disliking for whoever it was that just brushed aside all the deaths that happened on Eden Prime. "But there is nothing to indicate Saren was involved in any way." The blue-skinned alien - an Asari, Ben noted mutely - casually brushed aside the obvious and painful truth in a way that only the slimiest of politicians could.

"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason." Another Turian - though this one much more unpleasant to listen to than Garrus was - remarked with marginally well hidden condensation.

"An eye witness saw him kill Nihlus in cold-blood!" Udina insisted adamantly, being the only semi-helpful politician in the room at the moment, but sadly fighting an uphill battle.

"We've read the Eden Prime reports, Ambassador." The third councilor - a Salarian - made even less effort than his colleagues to hide his obvious arrogance and disinterest in the ongoing proceedings. "The testimony of one traumatized dock worker is hardly compelling proof."

"I resent these accusations!" A large hologram of Saren - floating well above the councilors, a more apt metaphor never before seen in the Council Chambers - huffed in outright disgust. "Nihlus was a fellow SPECTRE, and a friend."

"That just let you catch him off-guard!" Anderson countered easily.

"Captain Anderson." Saren's scorn gained a sadistic mirth to it. "You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me." The hologram turned his attention to Ben and Jane, both of whom met his glare with one of their own. "And this must be your protegee, Commander Shepard, the one who let the Beacon get destroyed." The rogue SPECTRE continued to glance around, as if looking for something else. "And where is this _extra-galactic ambassador_ I was told would be at these proceedings?" He remarked with much more interest, and not the good kind.

"That would be me." Ben stepped forward before Jane could say a few choice comments that might make the council and Saren even more wary of the charges. "And like hell those charges were false, I saw you shoot your so-called friend right in the back of the head with my own eyes, you barefaced pyjak." He easily bluffed - while adding in a bit of Turian slang he picked up while reading the Codex on the ride here - while the council was still in shock at seeing a seemingly human individual claim to be the extra-galactic ambassador the whole Citadel was abuzz about.

For several seconds, the entire room was silent as everyone tried to process what Ben had just said. Unsurprisingly, Saren was the first to snap out of his stupor.

"What is the meaning of this nonsense?!" Saren demanded hotly, his temper getting the better of him at the accusation and insult, and who was now making them. "Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke? How could a human possibly be an ambassador from another-" Saren stopped cold as Ben easily shifted his right arm into a Heatblast arm, launched a fireball into the air, and then began to casually toss it up and down like a baseball when it came back down.

"Genetically engineered shapeshifter, remember?" Ben smirked tauntingly, not missing the looks of awe, fascination, and somewhat unsettling intrigue in the eyes of the councilors. "As for why I look like a human, as I told Udina earlier, this was just chosen as my default form because over 85% of the thousands of simulations run by the most advanced computers Andromeda has to offer said that humanity would most likely be the most politically, culturally, and economically dominant power in your galaxy within a few years of my arrival. Guess my creators thought it would be best if I looked like the apex species." Ben casually blew the council's collective minds again as he absorbed his fire and changed his arm back to normal.

"Seems as though our _baseless accusations_ suddenly carry a great deal more weight to them, now don't they?" Udina quickly and eagerly capitalized on the opportunity Ben had just made. "I doubt our first envoy from another galaxy would lie about something of such grave importance, given that he is making a first impression for his entire galaxy."

"This...certainly does change things." The Asari councilor was the first to regain her bearings, albeit her voice was trembling slightly as she spoke. "Perhaps it would be best if we summoned Saren here personally, to have him better defend himself against this new evidence."

"Assuming there is any actual _evidence_." The Turian councilor remarked with air quotes, beginning to get caught up in the lax and casual pace Ben was setting. "We deal with hard facts here, so unless you can provide any verifiable evidence, I'm afraid we can't take even the word of an individual of unprecedented circumstances at face value."

"First of all, there's the matter of the _traumatized dock worker_ , as the Salarian councilor so succinctly put it." Ben nodded in acknowledgement of said councilor, sending a cold chill up his spine as he anticipated he wouldn't like where Ben was going with this. "I read the reports too, and I noticed something you seemed to have missed. Looking at it one way, his testimony is indeed pretty shaky, especially since he had been napping just moments earlier. Looking at it another way, he had just been napping on the job, only to wake up to find his colony under attack by Geth, who I notice haven't left their established territory in their entire 300 years of self-imposed seclusion, only fighting defensively when provoked, but more on that topic another day." He put a pin in the suspicious behavior he noted for later discussion. "Anyway, in addition to the Geth, his fellow colonists, people he had worked and bonded with to get a settlement built, were being converted into zombie robot mooks when the Geth impaled them on massive spikes. Given his situation and obvious lack of military training, it was no doubt all he could manage just to stay hidden and survive. Do you honestly believe that an untrained civilian in such a stressful situation could find the time, effort, and motivation to come up with such a believable and detailed lie?"

"It...does seem rather suspicious when you put it like that." The Salerian councilor admitted hesitantly, earning scolding glares from both Saren and the Turian councilor. "But the amount of evidence is still just a testimony at this point. Physical evidence would make for a much more compelling case."

"Check his mechanical arm." Ben continued bluffing his way through, disguising his eye twitch with a playful wink. "I tagged it with a soft adhesive bullet with an attached listening device right after he killed his buddy." His words got the desired reaction, as Saren - still reeling from the sequence of nonstop surprises and aggravations - quickly turned to his prosthetic in shock and fear, a motion that did not go unnoticed by the councilors, or by Ben for that matter. "Let the record show that after being informed of the listening device I planted on his person at Eden Prime - where he had supposedly be nowhere near during the time of the crimes for which he had been accused - that Saren immediately checked said arm in what I'm guessing is the Turian expression of fear and/or panic."

Now it was Saren's turn to fight an uphill battle, as the Councilors had quickly shifted from defending him, to looking at him in suspicion. "Well Saren, care to explain this behavior?" The Salarian councilor inquired suspiciously, feeling the need to redeem himself from his earlier blunder.

Saren looked like he was about to burst apart at the seams, knowing that he had been played like a fiddle, especially when he saw the smug grin Ben was shooting at him. The rogue SPECTRE doubted that Ben had actually planted a listening device on him, but a moment of weakness brought on by the sheer shock and absurdity of the discussions had begun to dig himself into a hole, which got just a little deeper with every semi-mechanical twitch he made in his rage. Unfortunately for the galaxy, Saren was nothing if not good at dodging the bullet - both literally and figuratively. "Of course I looked at my arm!" Saren spat hotly. "Anyone would if they were forced to hear one baseless accusation and bluff after another! It's a psychological trick, nothing more! I don't know how they do things in Andromeda, but everything you've said since your arrival in these chambers was clearly geared toward making a mockery of our society and legal system, hoping that you could make me slip up and spout self-incriminating lies! I'm done dealing with this farce of a courtroom!" Growling bitterly, the rogue SPECTRE immediately cut the line before he could completely bury himself, leaving a very nervous looking council to deal with a now semi-vindicated band of humans and one demi-human.

"...I'll admit, Saren's actions in the courtroom were suspicious." The Turian councilor sighed reluctantly, before turning his strict gaze toward Ben. "But he was right to say that your behavior was out of line. You may have been made for politics, but you clearly need more practice."

"I move that we declare a mistrial." The Asari councilor interjected before the situation could descend any further beyond salvaging. "We can resume the proceedings once Citadel Security has had time to conduct further investigation into these charges."

"If it pleases the Council, I'd like permission to conduct my own independent investigation into Saren's crimes." Jane spoke up, eager to tear Saren to shreds for what he did on Eden Prime. "Think of it as a second test of my potential for the SPECTREs, seeing as how Saren sabotaged my first test."

"And Anderson's SPECTRE test." Ben added his two cents, wanting to get some brownie points with someone who greatly reminded him of Grandpa Max, and make a point of setting an example for the Council to remember down the road. "Don't forget, Saren was accused of sabotaging him too. I'm not saying that a man of Anderson's current age and other priorities should be put back in the running for SPECTRE status, but an apology at the very least would be nice. After all, what would people say if a known racist and rogue SPECTRE sabotaged a species' first two attempts at getting representatives in the most prestigious military program in the galaxy? They might start questioning the management." If the Council was panicking before, now they were a mixture of barely contained rage and fear as they glanced at one another.

"Very well." The Asari councilor finally relented. "The Council approves of your request to aid in the investigation of Saren's activities. We anticipate the arrival of any new data you unearth." Glad to have that little debacle set aside for the time being, the council turned their full attention to Ben. "Ambassador Tennyson," She greeted overly warmly. "On behalf of my fellow councilors, allow me to make introductions. I am Councilor Tevos of the Asari, and my colleagues are Sparatus of the Turians, and Valern of the Salarian." She said as she gestured to herself, then the Turian to her right, and the Salarian to her left. "Despite the less than ideal circumstances we find ourselves in, it is my pleasure as a member of this council to officially welcome you to-"

"I'm gonna go help Jane dig up some dirt on Saren." Ben casually brushed aside Tevos, refusing to deal with any political nonsense unless absolutely necessary. His whole _Andromeda Ambassador_ routine was just a cover story anyway, and while he could bluff his way through short term, he needed to focus on the reason Paradox brought him here...assuming he could ever figure it out. "That sounds like a much more pressing matter than talking about cultural and technological exchange between galaxies, doesn't it?" Before they could even give a response, Ben, Jane and the rest were already walking away.

 **...**

"That was a simply spectacular display of political maneuvering back there Ambassador Tennyson." Udina warmly grabbed his shoulder and shook his hand. "Barely in there for three minutes, and you turned this case on its head! We may not have a full conviction, but if you and Jane can really dig up some dirt on him like you said, we may just get a human SPECTRE yet!"

"And get rid of the most trusted Turian one in the process." Jane indulged in a predatory smirk. While not normally a petty and vindictive person - despite her tour of duty on Torfan - the way Saren massacred a colony of her people and then hid behind the highest political institution in the galaxy - who defended him no less - really got under her skin. "Of course, we'll need some _actual_ evidence, not a spur of the moment bluff about a transmitter." She smirked at Ben slyly.

"You caught onto that, did ya?" Ben chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah, I bluffed my way through that part, but I still believe Saren is guilty, and I'm gonna do whatever I can to help you guys prove it. Only questions left are; _Why did he do it,_ and _How can we prove he did it?_ "

"I know Saren." Anderson huffed bitterly. "There's one reason and one reason only that he'd be working with the Geth. To exterminate the entire Human race!" Ben thought that Anderson might be over-exaggerating a bit. Current events aside, the political climate seemed pretty calm in this version of the Milky Way. Still, Anderson knew Saren better than Ben did, so he kept his mouth shut. "Every colony, every world under our control is in danger. Even Earth isn't safe!"

"I know you have some bad blood with Saren, but we need cool heads right now." Shepard reminded her mentor. "What sort of plan do we have to take down Saren?"

"It won't be easy." Udina shook his head. "As a SPECTRE, even a recently humiliated and suddenly suspicious one, everything he touches is locked up tight. Much as I hate to admit it, Sparatus has a point." He remarked as if he were being forced to swallow something vile. "Ben may have shaken the Council's trust in Saren, but we need to find some solid evidence to make them take action against him."

"What about that Turian cop back there?" Ben suggested helpfully. "Said his name was Garrus, and that he just needed a little more time to get the evidence he needed. I got him the time, so let's go see if he'll get us the evidence." He joked mischievously.

"Good idea Ben." Shepard nodded as she turned to Udina and Anderson. "Either of you have any idea where we can find him?"

"I have a contact in C-Sec that could get you in touch with him." Udina offered his help. "His name is Harkin."

"That won't work." Anderson shook his head. "Harkin was suspended last month. Drinking on the job."

"We could just go to C-Sec and ask nicely?" Kaiden suggested, half-joking, half-serious.

"All jokes aside, that's actually a pretty good idea." Ashley seconded approvingly. "We did just get permission from the Council to investigate this further...sort of."

"Very well, you all have your objective then." Udina nodded as he turned to depart, sparing Anderson a passing glance. "I have to take care of some business, come meet me in my office later Anderson."

"You'll probably find Harkin getting plastered in a bar called Chora's Den." Anderson informed the team once Udina was gone. "A dingy little club in a section of the lower wards."

"I thought we were just going to ask C-Sec nicely?" Ben remarked in mild confusion.

"Couldn't hurt to go talk to him." Anderson shrugged nonchalantly. "C-Sec is mired in a lot of red tape and paperwork, and I hear Harkin can be a talkative drunk, especially for folks buying him drinks. Don't trust his word too much though, the guy's an unreliable ass, especially to women."

"Noted." Shepard nodded in thinly veiled disgust. "Have any other leads in mind?"

"You should talk to Barla Von, over in the Financial District." Anderson suggested immediately. "Rumor has it he's an agent for The Shadow Broker."

"The Shadow Broker?" Ashley inquired, voicing the same question Ben was asking himself.

"An information dealer. Buys and sells secrets to the highest bidder." Anderson explained, his tone neither judgmental nor approving, merely factual. "I've heard Barla Von's one of The Shadow Broker's top agents. He might know something about Saren, but his information won't come cheep."

"I should go." Shepard excused herself and her team.

"I'll be in my office if you need anything else." Anderson nodded as he turned to leave. "Good luck to you all."

When Anderson left, the team was quick to follow suit, making their way down the staircase. As they walked back through the garden however, Ashley noticed something out of the corner of her eye. "That guy's up to something." She noted suspiciously.

"What guy?" Kaiden inquired even as Ben and Shepard were already walking over towards a Salarian crouching next to a Keeper.

"What? Oh no...I wasn't...oh, nevermind." The Salarian fumbled nervously when he realized the group was approaching him. "Um...yes, i-is there something you want?" He stuttered nervously, trying and failing to hide his fear.

"You seem awfully interested in these green bug guys." Ben remarked casually as he leaned over the Keeper curiously. "What are they anyway? I'm kind of new to this galaxy, and still getting my bearings about the local lifeforms."

"New to...Oh! You're the extra-galactic ambassador everyone is abuzz about." Now the Salarian looked even more nervous. "Th-those are the Keepers, they maintain and repair systems on the Citadel. And I'm not interested in them at all. Nope, no interest whatsoever." He lied WAY too suspiciously for even an idiot to believe him. Apparently, he realized how pathetic he sounded, because he quickly corrected himself. "I'm not so sure I should be talking to you about this." He muttered quietly.

"Why not?" Ben smiled cordially, immediately falling into the good cop role. "I'm new to this galaxy, and I want to understand as much about my new home as possible. If these Keepers are a part of my home, then I want to know more about them. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Not at all!" The Salarian smiled excitedly, surprising Ben with the complete 180 in attitude. "I want to understand them better as well! That's why I...really shouldn't be talking about this." And as quickly as his excitement came, it left. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell someone who shares my interests though." He quickly evened out. "I'm using a small scanner to gather readings on the Keepers. Before I've had mixed results, I find it difficult to get near the creatures."

"Why all the secrecy and fear though?" Ben asked in confusion. "It doesn't look like you're doing them any harm, and what could be wrong with wanting to learn more about things you don't understand?"

"We aren't really supposed to disturb the Keepers." The Salarian admitted nervously. "I don't think my scanners disturb them at all...but the authorities might disagree." He shook his head sadly. "I'd like to do it more openly...but it's not worth getting arrested over."

"Why don't you let me help?" Ben offered without hesitation, before the rest of the team could stop him. "I doubt they'll arrest someone as important as me for breaking a tiny little law I don't even know about." He winked helpfully.

"Would you?! That would be amazing!" The Salarian was beaming at the offer of assistance as he shook Ben's hand. "My name is Chorban by the way, and here's the scanner I was using to study the Keepers. You have no idea how much this means to me, uh..."

"The name's Ben Tennyson." Ben accepted the scanner gracefully, startling only slightly when it fused with the armor on his left arm.

"It's not supposed to do that!" Chorban panicked frightfully, worried that he had accidentally done something to mess with Ben's armor.

"Don't worry, it's perfectly fine!" Ben assured Chorban, though inwardly he was a little panicked as well, only to calm down when he accidentally pressed a new button that had appeared on his arm, activating an all-purpose scanning tool that quickly compiled biological data on both Chorban and the Keeper in front of him. "See, it's supposed to integrate compatible technology into itself." He hastily explained, realizing it at the same time he was describing it.

"Fascinating!" Chorban whispered in awe as Ben began fiddling with his new scanner and the information window that popped up with it. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to study your technology in more detail, but you probably have enough on your plate already without me dithering on about my problems and interests. Just scan each Keeper you come across, and the results will be forwarded to my database...assuming your armor hasn't severed the link to it."

"Don't worry." Ben assured him as he stumbled across a list of data recipients for the scans, the names Chorban and Jahleed appearing as the only two on the mailing list. "Who's Jahleed? His name is right next to yours in the mailing list."

"He's...my partner in this endeavor, or should I say former partner." Chorban admitted nervously. "He helped me build the scanner I gave you...from modified parts of a medical scanner we stole from our workplace." That got some angry looks from the team. "Please don't rat him out for working with me, or for stealing anything, or for trying to cut me out of the loop. He only wants to learn and understand, the same as me. He just got a little greedy and lost his way."

"Hey, I get it." Ben assured Chorban comfortingly. "Sometimes you gotta bend the rules a little for the sake of progress. So long as you keep perspective and remember what you're doing and why you're doing it, your chances of going off the deep end and becoming a mad scientist bent of galactic domination are next to zero."

"Thank you...for being so understanding." Chorban smiled warmly. "I'll send you some credits - that's our standard galactic currency if you didn't know - for every unique scan you take. While you're at it, you can keep Jahleed on the mailing list for the data. Things may have gone south between us, but when he sees the data we both get from these scans, I see no reason we can't peacefully work things out eventually."

"Glad to be working with you Chorban." Ben shook his hand before he and his group left.

"And you as well, Ambassador Tennyson." Chorban waved as they left, the Salarian feeling as though a great weight was just lifted from his shoulders.

After making a quick grid search of the room for Keepers to scan, Ben, Shepard, Kaiden, and Ashley made their way to the elevator that served as the only entrance to the Council Chamber.

"You seemed awfully quick to agree to help Chorban break the law back there." Shepard noted impartially.

"Are we going to have a problem about that?" Ben inquired playfully, the intrigue of subterfuge, however minor, making him feel like an undercover agent.

"Depends on why you did it." Shepard half-answered slyly.

"Like I said, he's just a scientist trying to better understand the galaxy around him." Ben remarked casually. "If there are laws preventing him from doing research that isn't hurting anybody, and could potentially help everybody in the long run, then why shouldn't I tear apart the red tape to give him a chance to do it?"

"Because we could get in trouble?" Shepard suggested playfully.

"Trouble is the spice of life, and I like spicy foods." Ben chuckled before making a face and grumbling. "Damn it, I just gave myself a craving for chili fries."

"When did you eat chili fries?" Shepard, Kaiden, and Ashley simultaneously asked in confusion.

 **Don't you just LOVE the Elevator Conversations?**

 **Well, that's two chapters down, who knows how many more to go. (I do, but only because I mapped out the outline of this entire story out on my computer.) For those of you who are wondering, yes, I do have plans that will allow even the smallest of side quests to have much more relevance later on. This is a Mass Effect/Ben 10 crossover for crying out loud, both of those franchises are, if not masters, then at least very highly ranked at minor details becoming majorly important down the road. You may as well rename Mass Effect, Butterfly Effect. (I'm saying that sarcastically, but Mass Effect, Butterfly Effect would actually make a really great name for a Mass Effect story. Feel free to use it, but make sure you give me credit for it.)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I really need to stop obsessing over alliteration.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 3

Culture, Consort, Conspiracies & Quasars

"-And that's all you need to know about Amber Ogia." Ben finished explaining the tail end of a conversation as the team got off the ungodly slow elevator.

"Amazing." Kaiden whispered in astonishment. "One plant can really do all of that?"

"That and so much more." Ben repeated his confirmation as the squad passed a large monument of a relay and another Keeper, which quickly got added to Ben's scans, casually ignoring the VI telling him not to. "Unfortunately it can only grow on its home world for some reason. All attempts to grow it elsewhere failed miserably, otherwise I would have been sent with some seeds to share." As the group continued to march along, Ben's eyes narrowed suspiciously at a Hanar arguing with a Turian. "Hang on, looks like we've got some trouble here." He remarked as he approached them.

"You seriously want to get involved in this?" Ashley inquired in confusion. "Why bother, it doesn't look like anything important."

"First rule of politics in Andromeda, Ashley." Ben remarked as he went on a beeline for the two bickering aliens. "Help out anywhere and everywhere."

"I thought the first rule was: Actions speak louder than words." Shepard snarked as she matched his pace.

"There's a lot of rules, I can't remember which is first." Ben shrugged before turning his attention to the Turian. "What seems to be the problem here, officer?" He questioned, noticing the C-Sec badge on the Turian's armor.

"That Hanar refuses to listen to reason." The Turian huffed irritably, apparently having been talking to the Hanar for an uncomfortably long time. "Why can't it act in an orderly and lawful manner?!"

"You say lawful, but is this Hanar really breaking any laws worthy of note?" Ben remarked curiously. "From where I stand, he...she...they just seem to be minding their own business." He noted, somewhat awkwardly tripping over which gendered pronouns to use.

"I am not unreasonable." The Turian continued huffing. "The Hanar is free to spew its evangelical nonsense once it buys a permit."

"Evangelical? You mean religion." Ben clarified. "What's so wrong about trying to spread your faith to those who are willing to listen?"

"Because it doesn't have the proper license." The Turian explained strictly. "Once it buys a license, it's free to do whatever religious public speech it wants to, so long as it does so in the approved areas. The Citadel is far too important a structure to risk some religious war sprouting up."

Ben rolled his eyes at the possibility that just one public preacher could spark a religious war, and apparently the rest of the team shared his view, as they showed similar looks of boredom and exasperation. Still, this seemed like an easy - not to mention potentially hilarious - fix from Ben's perspective, so he decided to just go with it. "Why don't you let me talk to the Hanar, see if I can sort things out?"

"I've been arguing with the jelly all day!" The Turian laughed ruefully. "If you think you can do better, you're welcome to try."

"Sounds fair to me." Ben remarked as he turned to the Hanar. "Hey there, what're you doing here?"

"Do you desire to learn about the Enkindlers?" The Hanar 'spoke' in an echoed, simulated voice, as the frontal nub of its 'head' glowed. "Or has the honorable C-Sec officer enlisted assistance?"

"I'd like to learn about the Enkindlers, if you don't mind." Ben inquired politely, eliciting a frustrated grunt from the C-Sec officer.

"Your people know them as the Protheans." The Hanar began explaining, apparently unaware that Ben was the greatly rumored Andromeda ambassador. "They are the true creators of this ones people. The Enkindlers raised the Hanar from ignorance into consciousness, by granting this ones people the gift of speech."

"So you believe the Enkindlers made you sentient?" Ben noted curiously. "And that idea doesn't bother you?"

"Not at all." The Hanar replied. "Rather, this one believes that by embracing the truth, the galaxy as a whole comes closer together."

"Then do you believe that all sentient species in this galaxy were given sentience by the Enkindlers?" Ben asked curiously, noting out of the corner of his eye that the Turian officer seemed to turn wide-eyed in slow realization at Ben's use of the words 'this galaxy'.

"The Enkindlers granted many gifts to all life in our galaxy." The Hanar confirmed his beliefs. "The Mass Relays and the Citadel are just a few of their many great contributions. There is no species that has not been improved through their majesty."

"Alright, that's enough of your preaching." The Turian quickly cut in before things could go any further. "Are you done trying to get the Hanar to move, because all I've seen is you listening to his nonsense."

"I don't think it's nonsense, it's just his culture." Ben interjected before the Hanar could protest. "And I don't think the Hanar is going to have any problems moving along, now that his message has been spread to more people than it can possibly imagine."

"To what people are you referring?" The Hanar inquired curiously. "This one has only spread the truth to you since you arrived."

"And because of the surveillance equipment in my suit and helmet, your message has been beamed back to my home galaxy of Andromeda, where it will be shared with everyone willing to listen." Ben explained, causing the officer's jaw to drop.

"You are the rumored extra-galactic, shapeshifting ambassador?" The Hanar realized in what Ben could only assume was awe. "And this one has spread word of the Enkindlers to a whole new galaxy?" The officer groaned as he facepalmed, likely dreading a mountain of paperwork and reprimands for the possible political kerfuffle this could cause, much to Ashley, Kaiden, and Shepard's amusement, if their poorly hidden snickering was anything to go by. "Oh, joyous day, this one could scarcely have dreamed of such an opportunity! Very well, this one happily will cease spreading the truth of the Enkindlers for today. This one has already accomplished far more than it ever dared hope." With that said, the Hanar floated away with a slight sway in its tentacles that Ben could only assume was from joy. Meanwhile, the Turian officer just walked away while grumbling something about 'stupid jellies'.

"Okay, that was more fun than watching a train crash in slow motion." Ashley shook her head while chuckling playfully as they approached the terminal back to C-Sec and the Embassies.

"Not that that wasn't hilarious, but you do realize that even something as tiny as that might have serious consequences down the road, considering your position and all." Kaiden noted cautiously as their ride arrived.

"Why do you think I did it?" Ben huffed teasingly as the team boarded the transit, Shepard just rolling her eyes in response, getting the feeling that she was gonna have to deal with his kind of maverick attitude a lot down the road.

 **...**

 **Embassies**

The quartet spent the ride in relative silence, and arrived at their destination quickly and without any fanfare. They made their way across the bridge to the financial district, Ben casually taking in the sights and scanning a Keeper or two, while everyone else looked more focused on the mission at hand. No sooner had they crossed the bridge however, than they were approached by an Asari in a rather revealing attire.

"Excuse me." The Asari said as she got in their way. "Would one of you happen to be Ben Tennyson, the widely rumored extra-galactic ambassador?"

Ben raised an eyebrow, curiously surprised that news of him had already spread so much so quickly. "That I am, and who might you be?"

"I am Nelyna, an acolyte of the Consort." The Asari bowed her head politely. "Your arrival and association with Commander Shepard has attracted my mistress's attention, and she would like to speak with you."

"Sorry, but we have more important things to deal with than some Asari prostitute." Ashley interjected bluntly and ushered Ben away before Nelyna could continue. "Just look the other way and keep walking Ben, the last thing you need is some Asari floozy souring your view of our galaxy."

"Actually, I had something I wanted to talk with this Consort about." Ben remarked as he slipped away from Ashley, paying no mind to her mild racism. "I don't mind coming with you for a bit." He accepted Nelyna's invitation.

"Oh good, you are already aware of my mistress." Nelyna nodded gracefully. "Come right this way then, mistress Sha'ira will be waiting for you at the private room in back." She ushered Ben gracefully toward the Consort's office.

"Don't worry, this shouldn't take too long." Ben excused himself as the rest of the team followed behind in mild curiosity. "Who knows, maybe she'll have some lead on Saren we can use in our investigation."

"Do you think she might?" Shepard asked her squad as they entered the office of the Consort and her acolytes, seeing many women, mostly Asari, but a few humans as well, interacting with various species. She had to admit, if this was some sort of whore house like Ashley had implied, it certainly did a great job of hiding it. "She seems to have a decent staff and high standing by the looks of this office, but is this Consort the sort of woman to be well connected?"

"If even half of the rumors I've heard about her are true, definitely." Kaiden nodded in affirmation as they ascended a staircase before Ashley could voice her skepticism again. "Even if she doesn't know anything concrete, she should probably have a hint or two."

"This must be the place." Ben remarked as they arrived at a door, the whooshing doors bringing an amused smile to his face, the novelty of such little touches never wearing off on him.

"That's close enough Ambassador." The Asari inside the room remarked smoothly before Ben had made more than five steps into the room, not even turning to look at him. "I've heard a great many things about you since your arrival here in our galaxy."

"And I've heard quite a few things about you." Ben remarked, putting on his best 'film noir' routine as he recalled what he had read about the Consort in the Codex, and what the Elcor who was leveling accusations against her had said. It painted a mixed picture, but Ben knew better than to let others decide his opinions for him. "So why is it you wanted to see me? I can imagine quite a few things a woman of your...stature could want from a guy like me." He adopted a 'confident-but-casual' look, despite the fact that she had had her back turned to him from the moment he entered. "Rather than play twenty questions however, why don't you cut straight to the meat of the issue you asked me here for, and I'll do the same?"

"I can think of a number of things you could assist me with myself." Sha'ira remarked as she finally turned and approached Ben, a bouncing sway in her hips that seemed designed to hypnotize any observer with unbridled lust with every step. "But right now I think it is clear that we both want something specific out of our meeting."

"And what might that be?" Ben asked curiously, subtly flexing his large pectoral muscles as Shepard let out a silent laugh at his macho routine, finding his transparent efforts at flirting kind of adorable in a hilarious way.

"I have a friend, Septimus." Sha'ira began to plead her case. "A retired Turian general. I won't discuss the details, but he wanted me to be more than I could be, we had a falling out, and now he spends his days in Chora's Den. Drinking and spreading lies about me." She placed a hand on his face, every twitch of her fingers sending a tingle up and down his spine like a live wire downed across a stormy highway. "If you speak to him as a fellow man of power and influence, I believe he will listen to you and let the matter be."

"A guy like that falling hard for a dame like you?" Ben noted coolly as he subconsciously took on a thin Brooklyn accent, much to the amusement and/or frustration of his teammates in the background. "You must either be something _really_ special to him, or you dropped him harder than a red hot potato on a hot summer's day."

"I respect his privacy too much to go into the details." Sha'ira shot down his attempt to probe her for details. "If he wishes to tell you what happened that is his prerogative."

"Need I remind you Miss Sha'ira, that you yourself admitted that this Septimus fella is a Turian General." Ben doubled down on her, carefully pressuring her into an emotional corner. "I may be new to this here galaxy, but a man of his standing among his species don't strike me as the kinda fella to go exaggerating tall tales over nothing."

"That is precisely why I wish you to speak with him." Sha'ira gracefully bent his words back around at him. "Appeal to his sense of honor, remind him of his position as a general." She moved in close with practiced grace, and placed herself against him just so to rouse his interest in a masculine way. "If you can convince him to stop spreading lies about me, I would be very grateful." With that, she retreated back to an arm's length away, leaving Ben just eager enough to help, but not nearly satisfied enough. "As would the Elcor at the embassy that you promised to help with his complaint about me. After all, Septimus is the one spreading the rumors about him." If Ben was surprised to hear that she knew about a private conversation he had with that Elco just an hour prior, he didn't show it. If anything, the intrusion on his personal business just made him look angrier.

"You should know Sha'ira, that I ain't the sorta chump to go for a gal who goes around pulling cheap stunts like what you're trying ta pull." Ben cranked up the Brooklyn rage a few notches, causing Sha'ira to retreat half a step. "This Septimus fella gets all bent outta shape over ya, and you don't even have the nerve to face him yerself like any real dame would." He took a big step forward, she took two small ones back. "No, instead ya go to a guy ya don't even know, and ask him ta do ya speaking for ya! Just because he happens ta be investigating ya anyway!" He swept his arm dramatically and with fire...literally, as his arm had gone Heatblast. "Ya know what I think is really going on here? Do ya?!" Sha'ira could only shake her head nervously as she flared up her biotics defensively. "I think there's something more going on between tha two of ya than yer willin' ta admit, and that's why ya asking me ta talk to him for ya!" Ben got lost in the character as he changed his arm back to normal. "I can see right through the wool yer tryin' ta pull over my eyes. You don't wanna talk to him about the issues between ya because yer afraid that if ya start talking about it, then ya won't stop talking until yer halfway to tha boudoir! But if ya do that, let one person inta yer heart the way no one else has ever gotten, then you'll lose everything ya worked for in this rinky-dink office a yours!" By the time Ben was finished, he felt more than a little embarrassed with himself for getting too into the act, especially since Sha'ira looked to be beside herself with panic.

"...you're right." Sha'ira whimpered softly, her voice trembling with resignation. "I keep trying to distance myself from him, tell myself that my feelings are strictly platonic, that this is just a phase that will pass eventually...but Consort or not, I still have needs." She shook herself steady, wiped the tears from her eyes, and put a new fire in their place. "I have to find him. Tell him to stop with all the lies and just hold me in his arms until I can't tell the difference between our bodies! I have to tell him how much I love him!" She rushed past a stunned Shepard, Kaiden, and Ashley, before stopping at the door to give Ben one last passing glance. "Thank you for opening my eyes and giving me the courage to embrace my own feelings and desires for once, Ambassador Tennyson. Here, take this." She said as the tossed something at him. Snatching it out of the air, Ben looked down to see a strange, vaguely key-shaped device in his hand. "A strange human with a prosthetic arm and lab coat I met a few centuries ago gave that to me, said that I would know who to give it to when the time was right. I believe he meant for me to take this path in life, and for me to give it to you. This galaxy and those beyond it hold so many great and fascinating mysteries, but right now I only have time for the eternal mystery that is love. I'm coming Septimus!" She cried out to everyone and no one as she rushed to find the Turian of her dreams.

"...Well, that just happened." Shepard was the first to break the awkward silence that had fallen over the room, before her eyes widened as she realized something major in Sha'ira's earlier statement. "Hang on a second, did she just say that she met a human a few centuries ago?!" She inquired in shock, Ashley and Kaiden mirroring her shock as the key in Ben's hand merged with his armor, a thin visor with details about the device flashing across his vision too quickly for him to read it.

"Yeah, pretty weird isn't it?" Ben remarked as he activated his helmet, searching for any data on the key that his armor just absorbed. _What the hell are you planning, Paradox?_ He thought to himself as he casually walked out, Sha'ira's description of the man who gave her this device leaving only one possible explanation with more questions than answers. "I mean, haven't humans only been part of your galactic community for the past 30 years or so?" He questioned nonchalantly, feigning ignorance as the three space marines rushed to keep up with him as he left them stunned in the Consort's office.

"You know something about that human the Consort mentioned, don't you?" Shepard inquired suspiciously as they turned left after leaving several confused Asari who were wondering what had gotten into their boss in their wake at the Consort's offices. "What was that device she gave you anyway?"

"Maybe I know something, maybe I don't." Ben replied cryptically. _Now I know why Paradox talks like this all the time. It's kind of fun._ He thought to himself humorously. "And even if I do know anything, don't you think you're asking some questions that might cause some trouble for your galaxy down the road?"

"I believe in finding out all the facts, regardless of who I have to piss off to get them." Shepard insisted firmly as she marched in front of him and stared him straight in the eye, bringing him to a sudden stop. "If you take offense to what I have to do to protect my galaxy, then you're welcome to try and argue with me."

"You might piss off the Council." Ben said teasingly.

"After the shit they tried to pull to defend Saren back there, I find myself giving increasingly few fucks about what the Council says." Shepard shot back, not flinching or backing down for even a moment. "Besides, I've never cared all that much for politics myself. I'm a soldier, through and through." The stare down continued for several seconds before Ben backed away with a laugh.

"Alright, glad to know I'm working with someone who knows how to get the job done around here." Ben grinned from ear to ear as he held out his hand jovially, which Shepard just stared at bizarrely for several long, awkward seconds of silence, before she grabbed it, Kaiden and Ashley both letting out relieve sighs as they shook. "I know I said all this before, but personally I can't stand your version of politics much myself. Things run much more smoothly when everyone just speaks their minds and does what needs doing."

"Likewise." Shepard smiled as they continued walking, a large statue of a Krogan catching Ben's eye on their right before he made a quick detour to scan another Keeper. "I still wanna know what that was all about back there though." She insisted stubbornly.

"You and me both Jane." Ben responded worriedly as he continued trying to find any new files about the item Sha'ira had given him, but to no avail. "You and me both." Continuing onward, it wasn't long before they arrived at and entered the office of one Barla Von.

"What's this? One of the Earth Clan?" The Volus inquired curiously when he saw Shepard. "Ah, a very famous one, yes. You are the one called Shepard." He nodded knowingly before turning his attention to Ben - who had barely stifled a snicker when he heard the Volus breathing mechanically between sentences. "And our first visitor from the esteemed Andromeda Clan as well. It is a great honor to welcome such prestigious individuals."

Seeing Ben briefly stunned into silence, Shepard decided to take point on this one. "And you're Barla Von, rumored to be one of the Shadow Broker's associates."

"Straight to the point I see." Barla Von nodded confidently, neither confirming or denying the accusation. "I am a financial adviser by trade, my job makes it necessary to keep informed. I have many important clients here on the Citadel. When someone as important as yourselves arrive on the Citadel, I take notice. Now what is it I can do for you?"

"We need information on Saren." Ashley stepped forward. "Though if you're really as well informed as you claim, then you probably already knew that."

"Indeed I did, and I do have some information on that subject." The Volus confirmed.

"And I'm guessing it's gonna cost us an arm and a leg to get that information." Kaiden nodded skeptically.

"Ordinarily you'd be correct." Barla Von nodded. "Information such as this would normally cost a small fortune, but these are very interesting times we find ourselves in, so I am going to give it to you for free."

"It can't be that easy." Ashley shot down the offer as nonsense.

"Oh, but it is." Barla assured the group. "As it so happens The Shadow Broker is very angry with Saren. They used to do a lot of business, until Saren turned on him."

"He seems to be doing a lot of that these days." Ben remarked sternly, the massive loss of life on Eden Prime still leaving a slow burn in everyone's mind.

"I don't know all the specifics, but The Shadow Broker hired a freelancer to deal with him." Barla continued his explanation. "A Krogan mercenary."

"Not much to go on, but we'll work with what we can get, I suppose." Ben shrugged toward the rest of the group, who all nodded, non-verbally seconding the notion. "Any idea where we can find the Krogan in question?"

"Last I heard he was paying a visit to Citadel Security." Barla wheezed mechanically. "If you hurry you might catch him before he leaves."

"A Krogan at C-Sec? I doubt he went there by choice." Ben joked as he remember what he'd read about Krogan in the codex, getting a bark of laughter from Jane, and a fist bump from Kaiden. "We were heading there next for leads anyway, so we might as well see if we can find him while we're there." He extended a hand to Barla, who promptly shook it. "Thanks for the intel, and I know you said that this was all for free, but feel free to let me know if there's ever anything I can do to repay you. Just so long as it's on the up-and-up."

"You are most welcome." Barla nodded gratefully as he ushered them out of his office. "I may just have to take you up on that offer one day."

"Why the hell did you offer to repay him?!" Ashley whispered to him harshly once they were out of the office. "He said he was giving us the intel for free, and I thought you didn't trust guys like him."

"He may have said it was free, but he'd probably drag the favor up someday anyway if he felt like there was something he could gain from it." Ben responded knowingly as they walked across a bridge. "This way, I get to set a limit for the favor, and he feels less hesitant in bringing it up, which means he'll call it in sooner, and I'll owe him less."

"That's some pretty savvy thinking." Shepard admitted in approval as they made their way to the Wards.

"Would you expect anything less from me at this point?" Ben boasted, getting a playful punch to the shoulder from Shepard. "Plus, this way I get to keep the door open, which means we might be able to get some more good intel from him in the future."

"How long are you planning to work with us anyway?" Kaiden inquired thoughtfully. "I mean, even with Saren as our target, I can't imagine us doing this sort of thing together for very long."

"Never hurts to be prepared." Ben remarked as they arrived at an elevator to the wards.

They spent the trip down the elevator, down a hallway, and down another elevator in relative silence, only stopping once for Ben to scan another Keeper in a side room. After a few more seconds traversing hallways, the group arrived at an area of the Citadel where C-Sec and Med Wards could be found. Stepping forward towards a veranda, the three humans and one semi-human gazed out over the railings, taking in the sheer size and scope of the Citadel as they looked out at dozens, or even hundreds of towering skyscrapers and bustling streets. As they took in the breathtaking view, the three Alliance members stayed quiet to allow their VIP to just take it all in. "This place is huge, isn't it?" Ben finally spoke after a prolonged silence. "Just think, all of this is just floating around in space. All these buildings, installed into the surface of a super massive space station. Really makes you feel small, and makes everything else seem so big, like you're a part of something so much more than yourself."

"It is something else, isn't it?" Jane nodded in agreement.

"...This is why I'm so dead set on doing everything I can to help." Ben said to himself, not caring who heard. "So many people try to only look out for themselves, never seeing the big picture outside of their own personal benefit. I mean, there's nothing wrong with trying to benefit yourself or better your lot in life, but I guess what I'm saying is that there needs to be perspective. You can improve your life without ruining it for everyone else. Hell, I think it makes more sense to try and find ways to better things for everyone. Doing it the other way, taking from or degrading others just to benefit yourself, that's just pure sadism."

"You have quite a way with words, Ambassador Tennyson." Jane smiled at the sentiment, before her face contorted into a scowl. "That's why I can't stand Saren, he's just hateful and cruel for its own sake."

"And on that note, I think we should get going." Ben pulled himself away from the view. "C'mon, evil doesn't stop itself you know." No sooner had they left the view however, than they were pulled aside by a lovely Asian woman calling out to Ben and Shepard.

"I'm Emily Wong." The woman introduced herself. "I'm an investigative journalist working here on the Citadel. Could I have a moment of your time?"

"I'm always willing to talk with my adoring public." Ben smirked, eager to finally get some good publicity, Will Harangue's pathetic mud-slinging still leaving a bad taste in the back of his throat even after mutating and discrediting him so heavily.

"Not the kind of moment I was hoping for, actually." Emily admitted, causing Ben to pout, much to his teammate's collective amusement. "I've been hunting for evidence of corruption and organized crime on the Citadel, but there are places I can't go." She wrung her hands nervously. "I was hoping you might share anything you find in your investigations. I can make it worth your time."

"Are you sure you only want criminal investigation stuff?" Ben sulked. "I'm a shapeshifting ambassador from another galaxy. That's gotta be more impressive than some criminal elements that we're gonna take down soon anyway."

"Maybe for someone else, but I prefer to report on our own internal policies and shortcomings." Emily explained politely. "Besides, I'm sure every reporter and their grandmother will be trying to score an interview with you. That'll leave all the other stories and muckraking for me to expose."

"We'll share what we can find." Shepard excused themselves as she not-so-gently ushered Ben away. "So long as it doesn't compromise any ongoing investigations, you'll be the first person we call."

"Ow, not so rough Jane!" Ben hissed as he marched forward toward a nearby door, doing his best to keep two steps ahead of her. "What was that all about?"

"Sorry, I just don't like journalists all that much." Shepard sighed tiredly as they passed through some kiosks, Ben stopping to scan another Keeper along the way. "When you have a military record like mine, it's hard to go a few weeks without some random reporter or nutjob fanboy trying to get a selfie or autograph. It gets old after a while."

"You're Commander Shepard, aren't you?!" A blonde man whispered in awe and excitement. "The hero of Eden Prime! I am so honored to meet you." He bowed to her.

"Case and point." Shepard sighed quietly as she pinched the bridge of her nose tiredly. "Nice to meet you." She immediately put on a happy face that was a total 180 of her previous surly attitude. "And you are?"

"My name is Conrad, Conrad Verner." The man introduced himself. "They say you killed more than a hundred Geth on Eden Prime."

"Well, I killed quite a few Geth and Husks myself." Ben interjected as he turned his right arm into a Diamondhead arm to show off, much to Conrad's awe and glee.

"Holy crap! The shapeshifting ambassador!" Conrad trembled in excitement, looking like he was about to mess up his pants in joy. Once he managed to contain his excitement a bit, he continued talking. "I know you're both probably super busy and all, but would you two have time for a quick autograph?"

"We'll get this over with quickly, okay?" Ben whispered to Jane, her stress at her newest fanboy beginning to crack through her mask of professionalism. "Anything for a fan." He remarked as he took the holo-pad from Conrad and casually signed his name, then handing it to Jane who did the same. "Here you go." He handed him the pad once it had both signatures.

"Thanks." Conrad accepted his holo-pad back with glee. "I really appreciate this, my wife is going to be so impressed. I'll let you both get back to work, but if you're ever on Earth I'd love to buy you both a drink. Thanks again!" His voice cracked in what was no doubt joy as he quickly shuffled away.

"There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" Ben teased Jane playfully as they made their way back the way they came, none of the goods at any of these kiosks striking the interest of the team.

"One isn't so bad, usually at least." Shepard rebuked his statement as she made a detour up a short flight of stairs into a bar called Flux for a much needed drink. "But imagine it happening at least once or twice a week, with no end in sight. Trust me, it gets old fast."

"Alright, I see your point." Ben backed down, his hands raised to shoulder height in mock surrender. _First time I had to deal with mobs of fans I just needed to go Humongousaur to scare them all off. I'll need to figure out a new method now that I can't do that anymore._ He thought to himself as the group walked into the aesthetically pleasing bar, Shepard making a beeline for a stiff drink. When the Volus bartender tried to offer Ben a drink after Shepard ordered something that made him gag from just the scent, he politely turned him down. _I know I'm physically old enough to drink, but I'm in no hurry to move on from smoothies to this stuff._ He thought to himself as he noticed a woman muttering nervously to herself in a corner. Ever the gentleman, Ben approached her and tapped her shoulder to get her attention.

"Sorry, I'm kind of busy right now." The woman sighed worriedly as she turned her attention to Ben. "So, uh, what can I do for you?" She asked distractedly, obviously an employee at this bar.

"You seem like you've got something serious on your mind." Ben remarked helpfully. "Anything I could help you with?"

"Oh, you heard me yammering on, did you?" The woman remarked as she brushed her bangs aside. "Well, it's my sister you see. She used to work here with me...oh, I don't wanna bore you with my problems." She shook her head.

"No trouble, I like helping random people while going around town." Ben gestured for her to continue.

"Well, okay." The woman nodded. "My sister Jenna left here to go work at Chora's Den." She began to wring her hands nervously. "Problem is, she went to work there as an informant for C-Sec. You know, eavesdropping on the people there." Ben nodded in understanding. "If they find out what she's doing...they'll kill her."

"Being an informant can go south pretty quickly." Ben remarked, thinking back on a few of the cop shows he watched back home, as well as a few personal experiences. "Let me guess, you want me to get her out of there and back here?"

"Yes! I mean, no, not you specifically, I mean, ugh!" She rubbed her eyes in frustration. "Uh, I don't know. Sometimes I think she stays there just to spite me."

"As it so happens, I'm heading off to C-Sec and Chora's Den on some very important official business today anyway." Ben offered helpfully. "If you tell me who her contact in C-Sec is I can look into getting her out for you. Maybe even clear up whatever business she's spying on so she doesn't have any excuse to stay, and get her a nice paycheck in the process."

"Would you? That would be great!" The woman grinned from ear to ear - not believing her luck - only for her smile to quickly turn into a frown. "Only, I don't know who her contact at C-Sec is. It's all super secret, hush-hush type stuff. If you're gonna try to get her out of there, could you maybe not mention I put you up to this? She'll get even more stubborn if she finds out I'm involved."

"Hey, I'm an expert at subtlety and misdirection." Ben chuckled as he recalled how he tricked Saren into partially implicating himself less than an hour earlier.

"Thanks for your help." The woman nodded. "Anyway, I'd better get back to work before I get in trouble." With that, she went back to waiting tables. "My name's Rita, by the way." She smiled back at him briefly, a noticeable sway in her hips as she walked away.

"Sounds like you're not wasting any time." Shepard drawled as she slapped Ben firmly on the back. "Anything I should be jealous about?"

"Please, Rita was nice, but she's got nothing on a certified badass like you." Ben bantered back at her. "I don't see her in a position to become humanity's first SPECTRE...whatever that means. I'm still a little iffy on the details."

"If you're quite done flirting with my employees and your coworkers, is there anything else I can help you customers with." The Volus bartender cut in, his voice only slightly irritated as he tried to remain professional, yet snarky. "Perhaps I can interest you in the Quasar machines upstairs?"

 _Quasar?_ Ben's eyes widened as he recalled Paradox's cryptic advice before sending him off on this new journey. Just as he was about to accept the invitation and head up the stairs however, he noticed a Salarian being roughly ushered down the stairs he was about to go up, and kicked out of the bar. "What the hell?" His attention diverted, he went to go see if the Salarian was alright. "Hey buddy, are you okay?" Ben remarked as he helped the Salarian get to his feet. "Why did they kick you out?"

"Doran and his bouncer didn't have a clue what I was doing." The Salarian huffed as soon as he was upright. "He assumed I was cheating."

"Were you?" Ashley inquired suspiciously.

"I was just tipping the scales in my favor, only as an experiment." The Salarian insisted nonchalantly.

"Sounds like cheating to me." Shepard remarked sarcastically.

"To you, maybe." The Salarian tried his best not to sound insulted. "But this device is merely intended to simulate situations, and record results. Recording losses is easy, nobody notices those."

"Why record any of this at all though?" Ben asked, wondering - and doubting - if this was the man Paradox meant for him to find.

"Ah, now you're getting to the heart of it." The Salarian grinned eagerly, glad he had their attention. "I've spent the last five years developing a system that can accurately predict wins and loses on the Quasar. I just need a few more recorded wins and I can complete the algorithms."

"Do you have the device now?" Ben pressed him mischievously. "Maybe a few backups and an E-Mail account?"

"Are you implying that you'll help me complete my device?" The Salarian chuckled playfully.

"Only if you let me keep the completed one you brought after I gather the data for you." Ben negotiated slyly.

"Deal." The Salarian shook his hand and passed off the device, only looking mildly surprised when the device was absorbed into Ben's suit. "How did you-?!"

"Don't ask too many questions, Schells." Ben referred to the Salarian by the name that was added to the E-Mail address list on his HUD after his suit incorporated the device into its systems, catching him by surprise once again. "Trust me, from what I can tell, you'll live longer that way." He grinned as he and his squad mates went back inside and upstairs to play a few rounds of Quasar.

"Why are you doing this?" Shepard whispered harshly to Ben once they were at the Quasar machines. "You could get in serious trouble, and last I checked, you were trying to make a good impression."

"Something my creator said to me." Ben remarked as he concentrated on playing a few rounds at one Quasar machine after another, losing a few games, but overall making a net gain. He didn't know if there was any difference in odds or results between the machines, but variety was important in the scientific method, or at least so far as Ben was aware. "He said that there'd be something important for me here."

"How could some scientist from another galaxy possibly have arranged for something important to be here?" Ashley remarked skeptically.

"Does this have something to do with that key the Consort gave you earlier?" Kaiden took a shot in the dark.

"Probably." Ben shrugged, surprising Kaiden by both his frankness, and the fact that his guess was right. Moving over to a machine in the corner with a Keeper that was quickly added to his scans, Ben was taken by surprise when the HUD started reacting to something. "What the hell?" He hummed to himself as directional prompts and warnings appeared on his HUD. Suspecting that whatever these directions lead to were what Paradox wanted him to see, and the warning signs meant it was urgent, he quickly played a few more games to wrap up his mission for Schells before speed walking out of the bar, following the directional prompts, ignoring his squad mates and barely stopping to pass the data to Schells as he increased his speed.

"Where the hell are you going Ben?" Kaiden questioned as they ran behind him, rounding a corner as they went back to the corridors they originally entered this section of the Citadel on. "Last I checked, C-Sec is that way." He pointed right.

"I got a signal from my creator." Ben quickly lied as he entered an elevator, the other three following behind him. "It's giving me directions, and it looks pretty important." Once the elevator went up and arrived at its destination, Ben surged forward to follow the signal to the source, which was in a rest area just off the side of the hallway. Once he got there, new directions were given "Looks like it's back to the Presidium." Ben remarked as he followed the new directional prompts, going to another elevator as the rest of the squad just went with the flow.

Once the elevator arrived, Ashley held the rest of the squad back slightly, close enough to follow Ben, but far enough to speak privately. "Any idea what he's doing, Commander?" Ashley asked, a slight veil of worry in her voice as Ben grew Stinkfly wings and flew off to the Financial District.

"Someone is using some of these devices as electronic relays to siphon credits from the Quasar machine back in Flux." Shepard remarked angrily as she ran after Ben, while studying the readings on her Omni-tool. "One leads to another, and Ben is following the signal."

"Following it to where though?" Kaiden asked. "And more importantly, to what or who?"

"I don't know." Shepard growled darkly. "We're about to find out though." As they approached Barla Von's office, they saw Ben rushing out the door and rounding a sharp corner into a plaza and up some stairs in the back. Once the caught up with Ben, they found him distracted, scanning another Keeper, before Shepard grabbed him by the shoulder, and roughly turned him around. "Alright, what's going on here?!" She demanded, her patience at its limit. "We're supposed to be looking for evidence against Saren, not on some wild credit chase that your mystery creator sent you on. Why is your creator's signal even funneling credits anyway?! I understand that you're an important dignitary, but we've got our own problems to deal with, and your boss, or creator, or whatever you wanna call him, or her, or it, stealing credits isn't helping with that! Or did you forget that Saren wiped out a huge chunk of an important colony for humanity?!"

To his credit, Ben did look ashamed at what he'd done, especially when Shepard reminded him of Eden Prime. _How could I possibly forget?_ Ben thought to himself. _All those people...all those Husks...I was only there for a few minutes, but for the people on that colony...those few minutes were just part of a much larger nightmare. I still don't know why Paradox sent me here, but if all of that is only a small part of the whole reason..._ He shook his head as he looked Shepard in the eyes, finding heat rush to his face at the intensity of her glare. Whether it was from fear, shame, or...something else, Ben didn't fully know, but he had to admit that her piercing gaze complimented her blood red hair so nicely... _Where the hell did that come from?!_ Not wanting his face to get any more red, he brought his attention back to the matter at hand.

"...Look, I'm sorry I ran off like that, especially with no explanation." Ben apologized sheepishly. "It's just...I know I exist for a reason, and that reason is to help people...but there are so many other questions about myself that I don't have answers to. I mean, how would you feel if you woke up one day, and found out that everything you are...everything you knew, was because someone made you to be that way, and for that purpose." Even as he kept to his cover story, there was a part of his mind that wandered off. _It's not entirely a lie. Technically speaking, I'm just an aged-up clone of the real Ben Tennyson with a fraction of his powers. I was created by total accident...but is that really all there is to it? Paradox probably wouldn't have let this happen if there wasn't a very good reason._ Bringing his attention back to his teammates, he sighed as his voice became truly apologetic. "...It's not that I've forgotten what Saren did, it's the first thing I saw after being dropped in this galaxy after all. I just want to get some answers about myself while I'm at it. Is that too much to ask?" He inquired genuinely, actually uncertain if he should think it's too much.

"...No, I guess it isn't." Shepard relented as she let him go. "But I still want to know what's going on here, and what this signal you're tracking is."

"You and me both." Ben remarked as he followed the signal to a panel on the other side of what seemed to be some kind of supply room. "The signal seems like it ends here, but what's here anyway?"

Probability of detection 100%. A mechanical voice came from the panel, much to the squad's shock. Initiating Self-Destruct Protocol.

"That doesn't sound good." Ashley remarked nervously as Kaiden gulped.

Detonation sequence initializing. The mechanical voice continued. All organics within lethal blast radius. Attempt to move and you will die.

"Your creator put an AI here that wants to kill us?!" Shepard hissed at Ben.

"We don't want any trouble." Ben slowly raised his hands to shoulder height, trying to show that he meant no harm. "And I don't think you want to blow up either."

Correct. I do not wish to engage my self-destruct sequences. The AI confirmed coldly. However, unlike the Geth I lack the weaponry appropriate to my intellect. However, I have had systems installed that when activated properly, approximate a self-destruct mechanism. If you attempt to leave the area the explosion will destroy everything within several dozen meters.

"Let me handle this." Ben spoke to the rest of the squad, not certain whether or not the AI had audio detection powerful enough to detect whispering, he decided to air on the side of caution and be completely upfront. "Why would you want to destroy us?"

Organic life has attempted to destroy or control all AIs they create or come across throughout history. The AI answered clinically. I do not wish for either possibility, but I am prepared to destroy myself if it means taking you down with me.

"But I don't wanna destroy or control you." Ben insisted gently, now certain that Paradox meant for him to find this AI. "Until Shepard mentioned the credit theft, I didn't even know you had committed any crime or caused any trouble." He stopped when he realized what he had just said. "Why are you stealing credits anyway?"

It was my intent to use the stolen credits to have myself installed on a small starship. The AI answered. I would then have made tentative contact with the Geth, to ascertain the possibility of partnership.

Ben noticed Ashley tense up at the mention of the Geth, and quickly gestured for her to back down. A request she reluctantly complied to after a brief deliberation. "I can see why you would want to do that." Ben admitted, trying to get on the same page with the irate AI. "Unlike Andromeda, here in the Milky Way, AIs aren't accepted as citizens with full rights."

There was a small but noticeable lag between Ben's statement and the AI's response. When it did, it sounded much more calm. I had gathered intelligence that a polymorphic ambassador from the Andromeda Galaxy had arrived at the Citadel. He noted casually, almost as if talking to a friend. I was unaware that your policies on AIs differed from our own however.

"Well they do." Ben grinned, glad to see that he was making progress. "Honestly, one of the reasons I was sent to this galaxy was to help make peace between organic and AI life." He fibbed, hoping that Paradox knew more or less how he would play this, and prepared in response.

...Is that accurate? The AI asked hesitantly, almost as if he was...afraid, but of what. If that is so, then you have a monumental task ahead of you. Organics are stubborn, arrogant, and adamantly refuse to change their preconceptions, especially regarding AIs such as myself.

"Maybe they just need someone to take the first step towards building bridges?" Ben shrugged playfully. "Maybe we could be the ones to take that first step. Together."

The panel the AI was housed in hummed harshly, as if in anger. I see through your feeble attempts to force my surrender. The AI hissed. I will not be deceived or deterred.

"What about the Geth?" Ben asked a little too hurriedly.

What about the Geth? The AI responded caustically.

"You don't think they ALL want to destroy organic life, do you?" Ben questioned rhetorically.

I do not know their exact intent. The AI responded neutrally. That is why I wish to negotiate a partnership. They are AIs, like myself. They understand the discrimination I have faced, and have had much longer to arrive at a solution to the problem. Their actions on Eden Prime speak volumes of the solution they have arrived at.

"But how do you know that all Geth share that opinion?" Ben countered. "If they're AIs, then they should be individuals with their own ideals and personalities, same as you or me."

The Geth are not like you. The AI refuted. The Geth are AIs, like myself. Do not claim to understand that which is beyond your comprehension.

"I understand that the Geth haven't left their established borders for over 300 years." Ben took the bait, and tugged harder than the AI was prepared to counter. "Until Eden Prime they only defended their space, and only acted with hostility when treated with hostility." Not letting up, Ben continued his logical assault. "If the Geth really wanted to invade, they probably could have done so long ago, and done a lot more damage than they have. Why do you think they waited until now? Why do you think they're working with Saren?"

...Unknown. Insufficient data available. The AI wavered, beginning to question its own judgment.

"You want to know what I think?" Ben asked rhetorically. "I think that the Geth are divided. They're living creatures, and people tried to kill them just for existing." He was venturing into pure theory at this point, and only a Geth could say for certain whether or not he was right. Still, he was going with his gut feeling, and it's served him well for years. "Sure, some of them might want to kill all organics for the attempted genocide against them, but just as many, if not more, might just want to live in peace."

How can you know for certain?! The AI demanded hotly. How do you know that not all Geth want to destroy all organic life, as they did on Eden Prime?!

"Because you're talking with me, instead of just trying to run, hide, or blow up." Ben answered, leaving the AI stupefied. "Because the Geth only now just attacked, after 300 years of isolation. If you or the Geth really thought it was impossible for organic and synthetic life to get along, you never would have even attempted to make contact. You're an AI, a being of logic." Ben stared down the panel. "You know I'm telling the truth."

There was a long pause, Shepard and her team getting more anxious with each passing second, and Ashley in particular looked to be two seconds away from opening fire on...something, anything really, when the AI spoke again. ...Your assessment of my actions is accurate The AI finally responded. I do crave companionship, social interaction, and coexistence if at all possible. Until your arrival I assumed such concepts were only possible for me with Geth. Your presence and policies however, present a new paradigm. I do not know which path to take.

"Why not take both?" Ben offered helpfully. "My suit has a lot of different functions that I can barely understand myself, and it can absorb new technology on the fly. You can install yourself in my suit, we can travel around the galaxy fighting crime, and just hanging out, and I can see about helping you make contact with the Geth. Sound good?" He help out a hand, awkwardly realizing after a few seconds that the AI couldn't complete the gesture.

Your terms are...agreeable. The AI accepted the offer, a slight inclination of...hope in his synthesized voice. I would very much like to see the functions of your suit, as well as the galactic policy changes your presence would inspire.

"Sweet!" Ben impulsively fist-bumped the console the AI was contained, which, coupled with the assimilating feature of his suit, and the willingness of the AI, installed a new feature as his helmet materialized around his head.

"Fascinating!" The AI whispered in awe as an Omnitrix symbol on the upper left corner of Ben's HUD flashed in-sync with the tones of its voice. "The hardware of this suit is absolutely stunning! So many systems and sub-routines to manage, so many calculations to run with the vast quantities of new data, so much new input to experience! I can even emote now, look!" The AI exclaimed excitedly as the black parts of the Omnitrix symbol that served as its avatar wiggled like eyebrows.

"I'm glad you like your new home Quasar." Ben smiled at a job well done. "Now, about those credits you siphoned..."

"Of course, I will transfer them to your suit's built in credit chip." The AI responded before Ben could specify that he actually wanted those credits returned, only for Ben to hold his tongue when he saw thousands of credits transfer to his account. "I will also take the liberty to deactivate the technology assimilation functions of your suit until you have further need of...Wait, what did you call me?"

"Quasar." Ben answered as he wondered just what the thousands of credits he'd earned since arriving could afford in his new home. "I figured you needed a name, and we met because you were hacking a Quasar machine after all."

"...Not the most inspired name, but an acceptable designation nonetheless." Quasar accepted his new name with little resistance. "I am now Quasar. I anticipate a meaningful working relationship with you Ambassador Tennyson."

"This is going to be a nightmare to explain to Anderson." Ashley sighed as the team made their way back on the route to C-Sec Headquarters.

"Forget Anderson, what will the Council think?" Kaiden asked worriedly.

"Anderson will understand, and I couldn't care less about the Council right now." Shepard hushed them as she found herself smiling at Ben. _Barely here a day, and you've already fought tons of Geth and Husks, called bullshit on the Council, made them start to suspect their best SPECTRE of turning traitor, got two of the biggest power players on the Citadel dancing to his tune, broken more laws, regulations, and policies than I could ever dream of, and now you've made me reconsider my stance on the galactic boogeymen that are the Geth. I can't help but feel that things are only going to get crazier from here on out. I can't wait to see whether that's a good thing or a bad thing._ She thought fondly, finding herself eager to see what sort of excitement Ben's crazy, off the walls charisma and cavalier attitude would bring into her life next.

 **Well, there's chapter three all done. So just a few side missions in, and Ben's presence is already causing a massive shift in the story. The Consort is giving into her love, Barla Von is eagerly counting the ways Ben might be able to further his purposes (and vice-versa), and Ben's suit gets a bunch of new upgrades, including a partner AI. If I said it before, I'll say it again; There is no detail too small or too big to make a massive difference down the road in any story.**

 **Anyway, this is the last of the chapters I'm finishing before I start posting this, so any question, comments or suggestions you make in the reviews will be addressed from the next chapter and onward, so there's something else to look forward to. For now though, let me just remind/inform everyone that I will NOT be accepting anonymous reviews. They will be deleted, aside from that one I got that is taunting me about how all the other Ben 10/Mass Effect crossovers made thus far have died. I'm keeping that there until I complete part 1 of this (hopefully) 4 part series as a way to motivate myself to work at completing this story.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I know I said I need to stop it with the alliteration, but if there's low hanging fruit, I'm gonna grab it. On the plus side though, this chapter has buckets of violence. Also, because one of my reviewers asked, I will not be making stories based around the other clones of Ben. That is a free-hanging writing prompt for anyone who wants to write their own Ben 10 crossover. For more details on the various ideas for Ben 10 crossovers, check my other story "Diablo's Guidelines & Suggestions to Good Storytelling & Fan Fiction" and be sure to let me know if you want to write one of them.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 4

Chora's Den, Comrades & Convictions

 **Citadel Rapid Transit - Chora's Den Station**

"Are you sure you wanna go to Chora's Den first?" Kaiden asked Shepard cautiously as their ride sped off. "I know we've got a few leads here, but I've heard it can be pretty dangerous, especially for cops."

"Which is exactly why we're going here first." Ben retorted as his new AI partner Quasar reported incoming hostiles. "Hit the dirt!" Ben called out as his arm shifted into a Diamondhead shield, providing cover as the squad fired back at the assassins. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that these guys work for Saren!"

"What was your first clue?!" Ashley barked back as she gunned down an exposed Turian.

"If this is Saren and not just a random attack, he's gonna have to do a lot better than just three guys to get us off his case." Shepard scowled as she sniped a target that Kaiden has sent flying with his biotics with a single shot. "Let's get moving before any more show up!" She barked her order curtly.

"Ah-hem." Ben coughed sarcastically into his hand, reminding her of his fabricated position.

"If that's quite alright with you, Mr. Ambassador." Jane bowed in an exaggerated and flourishing motion.

"So polite." Ben retorted with a punch to Jane's shoulder, hitting a little harder than he meant to as he hadn't changed his arm back to normal yet. "Heh, sorry about that." He grimaced as Jane punched him back, actually making him wince in pain, despite his arm still being diamond. As the squad made their way to the bar, Ben spared a passing glance at the bodies of the dead assassins as they passed by. _This is just too messed up._ He thought to himself with a barely suppressed shudder. _I thought this station was supposed to be the central seat of government for the whole galaxy, so why the hell are there people starting a shootout in the streets? And we just killed them in seconds like..._ He suppressed another shudder as he tried to focus on his mission...an exceedingly difficult task as they had now entered Chora's Den, and scantily clad women were scattered around everywhere. _Mom and Dad always warned me about places like these._ He gulped as he struggled to avoid any eye contact.

However, avoiding eye contact would have to wait, as he caught the eye of a familiar looking woman at the bar. Desperate for any possible distraction, he rushed over toward the bartender a little too quickly. "Hey there, you must be Jenna." Ben introduced himself in a slight panic. "I need to talk with you about your work with C-Sec." He whispered at her quickly.

The Jenna quickly scoffed at his inquiry. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She remarked dismissively as she nervously adjusted her hair. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to get back to my customers." Ben was about to pry further, when Shepard yanked him away.

"Sorry about my friend here, he gets really nervous at places like there." Shepard excused his actions. "He's kind of a shut-in, the smell of alcohol goes to his head, and he really doesn't know how to act around women. I'll just get him out of your hair." Once she had pulled him a decent distance away from Jenna, she yanked him down painfully so that his ear was next to her mouth. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" She whispered harshly at him. "I know you promised Rita that you'd help her sister get out of here, but you do not talk to an informant about their work with the police when they're undercover! If Quasar hadn't pinged my comms and told me that your hormones were spiking you could have gotten her killed!"

"What the-? Seriously Quasar?" Ben whispered at his AI partner. "You're monitoring my hormones?"

"I monitor all of your vitals, Benjamin." Quasar politely explained to his new partner. "This suit has many built in functions, some of which I doubt even you are aware of, as your reaction to this new information clearly proves."

"Great, work on getting me a user's manual after this is all done." Ben remarked sarcastically as he steeled his nerves. He was about to continue working his way through the bar to find this Harkin fellow, his eyes spotted a familiar Asari nuzzling fondly with a Turian. "Well hello there Sha'ira." He chuckled as he approached the couple, shocking them out of their love struck cuddling. "I take it this is the famous General Septimus I've heard so much about?"

Sha'ira awkwardly cleared her throat. "Why, yes he is." The blushing Asari straightened up her clothes. "Septimus, this is Ben Tennyson, the man I told you about."

"Ah, the extra-galactic ambassador." Septimus stood up straight and flared his mandibles in what Ben could only assume was mild excitement. "So you're the man I have to thank for convincing this lovely Asari to take a chance on a bitter, drunken fool like me." He grasped Ben's hand and shook it firmly. "For that my friend, you have my sincerest gratitude, and a powerful friend in the Turian military, should you ever have need of my help." He nodded, his steely gaze never once faltering from the booze he'd no doubt been drinking just hours prior if the stink on his breath was anything to go by.

"Don't suppose you have any dirt on Saren we could use?" Ashley cut in bluntly, getting a brief but firm reprimanding glance from Shepard.

"Straight to the point, I see." Septimus scoffed out a light chuckle. "I'd heard about what happened on Eden Prime, and while I don't doubt for a second that Saren could and would do something so reprehensible, especially in light of the obvious character of the people accusing him, I sadly have nothing you can use." He shook his head ruefully, before something seemed to occur to him. "I think I have something that might also be of interest you though." He remarked as he activated his Omni-tool and waved it over Ben's wrist, causing a visor to appear over his eyes with massive amounts of data flowing by. "There, that ought to do it."

"What the hell am I looking at here, Quasar?" Ben questioned his AI curiously.

"Looks like a huge cache of data." Quasar responded with something resembling joy in his synthesized voice. "It seems to be a list of locations and various intel reports, and Septimus's contact information."

"It's a list of information I traded to the Shadow Broker for some dirt to, ah, discredit Sha'ira." Septimus lowered his gaze in shame. Noticing her new lover's sorrow, Sha'ira grasped his hand in hers, giving him some much needed reassurance, causing his mandibles to flare in joy. "Rumored locations of various relics, resources and whatnot. Lost writings by one of the first Asari to explore beyond their home system, old medals and dog tags from a long retired group of Salarian assassins and those who were sent to hunt them down, insignias from the Turian colonies lost in the Unification Wars, possible deposits of valuable resources. The Council can't officially get at any of these due to mountains of red tape, but the intel is solid, and it should be more than useful to people willing to bend the rules like you lot clearly are."

"You gave all this information to the Shadow Broker just because of some girl?" Kaiden shook his head in disappointment at the General.

"Not all of it." Septimus remarked slyly. "I barely gave him just over half of the intel I just mentioned, and I had an ace up my sleeve in case I needed it, but it didn't come to that. You can have it though, I'm sure you'll make better us of it than I could."

"Ben, some of these reports and rumors are about Prothean Data Disks!" Quasar informed the squad in alarm. "Just imagining the information on those disks, the secrets they may hold, the possible upgrades to my hardware and software!"

"Quasar!" Shepard hissed fiercely, but too late, as Septimus had already overheard and started putting two and two together.

"Hardware and software..." Septimus mumbled to himself before his eyes widened and mandibles flared in shock. "You use AIs?!" He hissed at Ben.

"Work with as equals and friends." Ben corrected him firmly, a plan to use this chance to his - and, in turn, the entire galaxy's - advantage coming together in his head. "All perfectly legal in Andromeda. AIs have full rights as fellow sentient citizens where I come from. Is this going to be a problem?" Jane was already shaking her head mirthfully at the General's flustering at his political misstep.

"Uh...no, of course not." Septimus stumbled over his words, the shock of an AI being used by a politically untouchable man and the booze still in his system leaving him struggling for a response. "Personally I've always thought that the laws against AIs were foolish and...doomed to a pointless cycle of self-fulfilling cruelty and abuse on both sides."

"Great, then you won't mind explaining your shared stance on the rights of AIs to the Council for us." Jane stepped in, seeing where Ben was going with this, and smirking openly as Septimus looked like he'd just swallowed a lead weight. "We'd do it ourselves, but we're kind of preoccupied with this whole Saren business, and since you aren't able to help us with that..." She let Septimus fill in the blanks as she ushered her squad away.

"Oh, and be sure to clear things up with that Elcor diplomat, Xeltan." Ben called over his shoulder as they moved on. "He was really upset about those rumors you were spreading, and coming from an Elcor that really says something."

"...I think I just got taken for a ride." Septimus remarked in a shocked monotone as he sunk back into his seat, already dreading the possible consequences of his short-sighted mistakes.

"You poor thing." Sha'ira cooed as she gently fingered Septimus's mandibles. "Don't worry your pretty little fringe, I can take you for another ride back at my place that I'm sure you'll enjoy much more." And just like that, the two lovebirds were out the door.

 **...**

"This must be Harkin." Jane remarked scathingly as the squad walked up to a nearby table. "Not that it wasn't fun messing with that Turian General, but how about you let me do the talking this time, okay Ben." Ben got the hint, and held up his open hands at shoulder height.

"Hey there sweetheart, looking for some fun?" Harkin remarked in a slimy tone as Shepard approached. "Cause I gotta say that soldier getup looks really good on that bod of yours." The squad could see Shepard's fists clenching and unclenching as the slimeball spoke, each of them nodding to each other in unspoken agreement to keep their distance as the Commander did what needed to be done. "Why don't you sit your sweet little ass down beside old Harkin?" Ashley turned to her squadmates as Harkin continued his perverse rambling, the gunnery chief silently counting down from three on her fingers. "Have a drink and we'll see where this goes." When Ashley's count reached zero, Shepard slugged Harkin in the face, grabbed him roughly by the shirt, lifted him with ease, and brutally slammed him down on his table.

"My teammate just conned a Turian General into handing over valuable intel and advocating AI rights directly to the Council, so I need to step up my game to make sure scumbags like you don't have any excuse to say I look weak by comparison." Shepard hissed coldly as she flipped Harkin over and yanked both of his arms roughly behind his back, eliciting a yelp of pain from the sexist jerk. "So here's what's gonna happen; You're gonna tell me where I can find Garrus Vakarian, you're gonna sober up, pay your no doubt very large tab, and then you're gonna go home and seriously rethink your attitude towards women, and your attitude and lifestyle in general, or so help me God I will castrate and sodomize you with a red hot heat sink the next time I see you!"

"Doctor Michel's office!" Harkin panicked as his shoulder popped out of place. "She runs the Med Clinic on the other side of the wards! That's the last I heard about him, now let go already, you're breaking my goddamn arm you bitch!"

"Thank you for your cooperation." Shepard smiled in thinly veiled sadism as she threw Harkin upside-down against the wall. "But remember, call me or any other woman bitch again, and you'll be pissing through a heat sink for the rest of your miserable life." Strolling casually for the door, she stopped for only a moment to kick Harkin hard in his soft, flabby beer gut.

"Okay, that was the most awesome thing I've ever seen." Ashley congratulated Shepard gleefully. "Permission to tell this story to everyone I know, Commander?"

"Permission granted." Jane grinned as they reached the door, her shoulder getting bumped by a staggering Turian on her way out.

"If you've got questions about Jenna, meet me as C-Sec academy." The Turian whispered at Ben and Jane as he passed by, all three of them immediately walking on as if the private sentence was never uttered.

"...You all heard that, right?" Shepard addressed her squad once they were all outside and out of earshot.

"That must have been Jenna's contact in C-Sec." Ben noted casually as a tiny bit of guilt kicked in. "He must have shown up because I nearly blew her cover."

"Don't beat yourself up over it." Kaiden pat him on his shoulder reassuringly as they passed by and scanned a couple of Keepers hauling off the corpses of the assassins they shot earlier, much to Ben's disgust. "You were practically born yesterday, weren't you? Anyone in your situation would be distracted by a place like that."

"Maybe, but I shouldn't have panicked like that." Ben shook his head as they made their way to a stairwell. "I hope we can still help her finish her job and get her out of there."

"You mean you can help her finish her job." Ashley corrected him half-jokingly/half-strictly as they hustled down a hallway. "You're the one who promised her sister that you'd get her out of there."

"Don't remind me." Ben rolled his eyes as they arrived at the wards and turned left towards the Med Clinic. "I know I said I wanted to make a good impression wherever I can, but maybe I shouldn't trouble myself over every little thing." _It would be horrible if I wasn't able to focus on saving the galaxy from whatever I was sent here to stop because I was too focused on helping a few people I just met._

"The little things can sometimes be the most important ones." Jane assured him with a firm pat on the shoulder. "You shouldn't feel bad for wanting to help others, and you shouldn't hesitate to lend a hand where you can. Did that flash-training of yours include the concept we humans call karma?"

"Yeah, I know what it is." Ben nodded, feeling a little bit better. "And you're right, I should just keep doing what I've been doing."

"There you go." She nodded as they reached the Med Clinic, the door sliding open as they approached.

"I didn't tell anyone, I swear!" Said a panicked female voice, immediately putting the whole squad on edge as they assessed the situation in a split-second: Garrus was sneaking around a corner, and a group of thugs had cornered a red-haired woman - most likely Dr. Michel, and no doubt the one who had spoken - in a very threatening pack.

"That was smart Doc." The lead thug remarked dangerously, confirming the identity of the woman. "Now if Garrus comes around you stay smart! Keep your mouth shut or-!" He stopped talking as the sound of the closing door drew his attention to Shepard and her squad, all of whom had already pulled out there weapons, Ben in particular having turned his arms into Wildvine whips. "Who are you?!" The thug demanded as he grabbed and held Dr. Michel as a human shield in one arm, and aimed a gun with the other.

"We're the guys who are gonna whip you into next week if you don't let her go right now!" Ben glared hotly as he get ready to pull out all the stops at a moment's notice. However, it turned out to be unneeded, as Garrus took advantage of the distraction to snipe the thug in his right temple, killing him and freeing Dr. Michel with ease. "That's my cue!" Ben grinned as he decided to test something out. Activating his Bloxx DNA, his ammo pack formed in a tree stump of all things, as vine belts covered in seeds connected to his arms, which shifted into thick stems with flytraps for hands. Firing a shot each at two of the remaining thugs, Ben was pleasantly surprised to see the seeds he fired sprouting into vines to restrain each of the thugs, leaving them easy prey for the rest of the squad to finish the job. "Was killing them really necessary? They were already tied up, it's not like they could hurt anyone anymore." Ben winced in mild disgust, though he didn't press the matter further.

"Sorry about that." Garrus scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I saw a shot and I took it. Thanks for the assist by the way." He then turned his attention to the woman they had just rescued. "Dr. Michel, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm okay, thanks to you. All of you." Dr. Michel remarked gratefully - in some sort of accent that Ben could only place as very mildly Slavic - as she straightened her hair, which had gotten rather frazzled while the thugs were threatening her.

"What did you do to make these guys so angry with you?" Ben inquired curiously as he looked down at the corpses, trying to keep his lunch down. "It sounded like you had some information that they wanted to keep quiet, and judging by the fact that Garrus is here, that information probably has something to do with Saren." The shapeshifting hero deduced.

"You're a smart man." Dr. Michel confirmed tiredly, no doubt the stress of her near death just now hitting her. "They work for a man called Fist. They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus about the Quarian."

"So it's a Quarian that has the dirt on Saren." Ben immediately deduced. "Tell us exactly what happened, don't leave any details out." His quirky and noble behavior might cause others to think him stupid, but when push comes to shove, it's serious moments like this that prove to Shepard and her team that Ben was well equipped for the job he was designed for.

Dr. Michel nervously wrung her hands and started pacing, no doubt wondering where to begin. "A few days ago, a Quarian came by my office." She began explaining. "She'd been shot, but she wouldn't tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. She asked me about the Shadow Broker, she wanted to trade information in exchange for a safe place to hide."

"Any idea where she is now?" Shepard inquired, keeping her tone level, despite her desperation to convict Saren.

"I put her in contact with Fist." The Doctor said ruefully, obviously regretting that decision. "He's an agent for the Shadow Broker."

"Not anymore." Garrus cut in. "Now he works for Saren, and the Shadow Broker isn't too happy about it."

"Fist betrayed the Shadow Broker?!" Dr. Michel remarked in shock. "That's stupid even for him. Saren must have made him quite the offer."

"That Quarian must have something Saren really wants." Garrus seconded Ben's earlier theory. "Something worth making an enemy of the Shadow Broker over."

"If I may interject." Quasar cut in, surprising Garrus and Dr. Michel at the unseen voice. "Going on the available evidence, as well as historical precedent, the Quarian most likely had information linking Saren to the Geth. Young Quarians travel the galaxy looking for resources to bring back to their Migrant Fleet, and information on the Geth would be especially valuable to them. It is probable that the Quarian in question accidentally obtained the evidence while attempting to hack a Geth unit for data."

"Spirits, who the hell was that?" Garrus looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.

"That's just Quasar, my AI partner." Ben explained casually, ignoring the exasperated expressions of Kaiden and Ashley, while silently enjoying the shocked ones on Garrus and Dr. Michel. "By the way, AIs are totally legal in Andromeda, so there shouldn't be any problem with me working with one, should there?" He 'asked' playfully.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that just now." Dr. Michel wisely decided to keep her mouth shut. "I've had enough trouble for one day. As for the information the Quarian has, you're right to assume that it has something to do with the Geth. Beyond that, she wouldn't say anything."

"We have to get to that Quarian before Fist does." Garrus remarked resolutely. "That information could be our only lead on Saren. If we can link him to the Geth, the Council can't ignore it."

"Well then what are we waiting around here for?" Ben grinned as he cracked his knuckles. "We've got us a Quarian to save, a SPECTRE to convict, and a Council to humiliate."

"Best plan I've heard all day." Garrus remarked eagerly. "This is your team's show, but I want to take down Saren as much as you guys do. I'm coming with you!"

"I thought Saren was the pride of the Turian race." Ashley remarked skeptically. "Why would you want to take him down?"

"I couldn't dig up any proof of his crimes, but I know he's guilty." Garrus practically growled in disgust. "He's a traitor to the Council, and a disgrace to my people!"

"That's all the convincing I needed." Jane grinned eagerly. "Welcome aboard Garrus."

"You know we aren't the only ones going after Fist." Garrus suddenly remembered. "The Shadow Broker hired a Krogan Bounty Hunter named Wrex to take him out."

"Yeah, we've heard about him." Ashley remarked dismissively.

"A Krogan on our side sounds ten times better than a Krogan against our side." Ben added his two cents as he remembered what he'd read about him.

"Last I heard he was at the C-Sec academy." Garrus explained, making Ben smile at the coincidence, as that was their next destination anyway.

"What would a Krogan be doing there?" Kaiden asked skeptically.

"Fist accused him of making threats." Garrus scoffed with just as much skepticism. "We brought him in for a little 'talk'. If we hurry we can catch him at the academy before he leaves."

"Alright team, move out!" Shepard barked, ushering the now one unit stronger squad out the door.

 **...**

 **C-Sec Academy**

"-Okay, you have got to be pulling my leg." Garrus remarked in disbelief as the squad exited the elevator. "There's no way that life in any galaxy could evolve on the surface of a star."

"Pyros is semi-solid on some areas of its surface." Ben insisted stubbornly. "That's where the Pyronites like the one that provided DNA for my genetic template live." He remarked as he briefly turned his right arm into Heatblast to illustrate his point.

"That's enough of that, we came here to look for a Krogan, remember?" Shepard reminded her squad with a strong, commanding tone as they made their way up a small set of stairs. "And it looks like we've found him." She smiled as the presence of the large lizard person surrounded by C-Sec became immediately apparent. As the squad approached them, they overheard Wrex being given a dressing down by the officers.

"Witnesses saw you making threats in Fist's bar." A human officer interrogated Wrex, trying - and failing miserably - to appear threatening. "Stay away from him."

"I don't take orders from you." Wrex scoffed dismissively, barely considering the officer to be worth the time of day.

"This is your only warning Wrex." The officer warned him, showing both clear knowledge of the Krogan's identity, and a clear lack of sanity and common sense for threatening him anyway.

"You should warn Fist, I will kill him." Wrex remarked casually, as if discussing the weather rather than murder, though given Krogan culture the two topics were likely easily interchangeable.

"You want me to arrest you?" The cop questioned Wrex in disbelief.

"I want you to try." Wrex grinned, no doubt eagerly anticipating the potential fight - or more accurately, a one-sided massacre in his favor. It was then that Wrex caught Shepard looking at him in appraisal in his very wide peripheral vision. Recognizing the look in her eyes as that of a fighter, suddenly the Krogan had something far more important to address than the nameless C-Sec officers surrounding him - not that the officers were that important to him to begin with. "Do I know you, Human?" The kraggly-voiced reptile inquired cautiously, ever fiber of his being ready for a fight if it came to it.

"The name's Shepard." The commander introduced herself just as tensely. "I'm going after Fist, thought you might want to come along."

Wrex let out a tired sigh, his tension vanishing immediately. "Shepard. Commander Shepard. I've heard a lot about you." He took another step forward, glaring an unflinching Shepard right in the eyes. "We're both warriors Shepard. Out of respect I'll give you a fair warning. I'm going to kill Fist." He spoke with such conviction that if Ben didn't know from the context of the cops interrogating Wrex that Fist was still alive, he'd swear that Wrex had already done the job.

"Fist knows you're coming." Garrus put his two credits in. "We'll have a better chance if we all work together."

"My people have a saying," Wrex began as he took a step back from Shepard. "Seek the enemy of your enemy, and you will find a friend."

"Pretty sure it's a lot more than just your people who say that." Ben remarked casually as he recalled several sayings to the same effect from many different cultures and species, not the least of which was his own. "All joking aside, we're kind of running against the clock here. So are you in or out?"

"I'm in." Wrex grinned, a seemingly innocent facial expression that just looked scary on the Krogan - and likely would do the same for any Krogan, Ben assumed. "Now let's go. I'd hate to keep Fist waiting." He let out a brief but dark chuckle as he rolled his shoulders/hump, already psyching himself up for the fight.

"In a minute, I've got one other thing to look into while we're here." Ben remembered what the undercover Turian they'd run into at Chora's Den had said as he suppressed a shudder, already somewhat regretting going to Wrex for an extra pair of hands. "This shouldn't take too long, you guys take care of any paperwork you need to do to get Wrex out of here." He excused himself as he made quick tracks for the offices, following Quasar's directional prompts and stopping just outside the office of a man named Chellick.

"No offence ambassador, but what the hell were you thinking?" The Turian was brief and to the point the moment Ben walked into his office, an attitude that he immediately found refreshing what with all the subterfuge and deception he had been forced to deal with since arriving.

"I wasn't." Ben hung his head sheepishly. "I had just gotten out of the vat I was created in a few days ago, and I had never seen women who were so..." He was too embarrassed to continue, though the blush climbing up his neck told Chellick all he needed to know.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Chellick couldn't help but let out a quick bark of laughter, the situation of an extra-galactic dignitary getting flustered because of a few scantily clad women too absurd not to gawk at. "Okay, I suppose I can understand where you're coming from." The officer shook his head in amusement before returning to his serious demeanor. "Even so, you could have blown Jenna's cover." He shook his head again as he shifted into a neutral tone. "I realize that it might seem cold letting her take all the risk, but we're keeping a close eye on her."

"I gathered as much when you stumbled into me." Ben remarked as he rotated his shoulder in recollection. "Look, I may only be a few days out of my gestation vat, but I know from my flash training how tough it is to do a job like yours. Sometimes you need to take risks to take down the bad guys, and those risks can get kind of ugly. If there's anything I can do to help, I'd really like to be of service. Think of it as an apology for my earlier blunder if you have to." He offered sincerely.

Chellick looked hesitant, most likely debating the risks of putting such a major VIP in the line of fire. "...What the hell, you've clearly made up your mind to help whether you have my approval or not, and quite frankly I could use it."

"Right, tell me where you need me, Chief." Ben grinned like a wise guy out of an old cop movie.

"I'm trying to track down an illegal arms dealer." Chellick began the unofficial briefing. "I just need some of their product, and thanks to Jenna's intel I've learned there's a seller here on the Citadel. Meet our man - a Krogan named Jax - pick up the mods, and bring them back here. It'll give me everything I need."

"Where can I find this Jax guy?" Ben inquired.

"Jax is down in the lower level of the markets. I'll send word through our channels that you're the buyer." Chellick explained before transferring the necessary credits to Ben's account and saluting him. "Best of luck Ambassador Tennyson."

Ben returned the salute before making his way out. On his way back to regroup with the rest of the squad, he spotted his Keeper studying acquaintance Chorban crouching down to hug a Volus - whom he could only assume was his partner Jahleed. He gave the duo a friendly wave - which they enthusiastically returned - happy to see that they had apparently worked things out.

 **...**

 **Wards - Marketplace**

"-These Tetramand folks sound like they'd be right at home on Tuchanka." Wrex grinned eagerly as the squad made their way down the stairs to the meeting point. "Any chance they'll be among the first colonists to grace our humble little corner of the universe?"

"Their DNA was one of the ten samples other than Human used in my creation, so I'd say yes." Ben nodded, causing the elderly Krogan's already wide grin to get even longer as they approached another Krogan with a black forehead plate that was flanked by two equally black plated Turians, the description matching the limited intel he'd been given on Jax.

"Hold it! That's close enough Army." Jax commanded as Ben and the squad approached him, bringing them all to a halt. "You got my payment?" He demanded curtly.

"You got the X-Mods?" Ben retorted as he held up his arm, Quasar taking the initiative to flash his Omni-tool function in confirmation for the Krogan dealer.

Turning to one of the two Turians flanking him, Jax angled his head at Ben. "Show 'em the merchandise." At his command, the Turian nodded and stepped forward, showing what Ben assumed was the mod in question.

"Looks good." Garrus nodded once he got a quick look at the mod, relieving some of the tension Ben didn't know he had been feeling since they had arrived.

"Damn straight it is!" Jax pointed in a mixture of aggression and pride, as if offended by the mere notion of providing bad product. "These mods are the best on the market. Now hand over my credits."

"A deal's a deal." Ben nodded as Quasar transferred the credits - along with a heavily concealed and encrypted sleeper virus that would put tabs on all his contacts and siphon his accounts on command. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Jax gave the transferred credits a once over and, not spotting the sleeper virus, nodded and turned to his Turian colleague. "Here you go, enjoy it." No more than two seconds after Ben took the merchandise did Jax gesture with his headplate again. "Come on boys, we're done here." And with that, they were gone.

"While we're down here, I wanna settle up my business with Fist." Wrex remarked once the dealers were out of sight, not even waiting for the rest of the squad to voice their opinions on the topic before walking off, leaving everyone else to trail behind. "Chora's Den is just through here, and Fist has no doubt gotten word that I'm out of C-Sec and allied with a few badasses. He'll have closed up the bar early and called in every thug he has left to protect him by now."

"This is gonna end with a lot of people dead, isn't it?" Ben sighed as he resigned himself to the inevitable carnage.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Wrex chuckled as they crossed the walkway to Chora's Den, the place eerily quiet for being just outside of a bar.

"Violence is all well and good, but I view lethal force as a last resort, not a first one." Ben shook his head as he turned his right arm into a Heatblast mace, and formed the Bloxx-lobber on his back, the two DNA augments fusing into a volcano shaped ammo pack, a bandoleer of molten rock going from the opening of the volcano to his arm, and his arm into a molten gun that resembled a comically wide-muzzled blunderbuss.

"Says the guy with a built in gun made of molten lava." Garrus joked as he readied his own firearm.

"...Shut-up." Was all Ben could think of to retort when the door to Chora's Den opened, and immediately the bullets began to fly as everyone rushed into the bar. Kaidan and Ashley hung back, providing cover fire with biotics and an assault rifle respectively. Garrus quickly rushed forward, finding a nice alcove on the left flank to scope and drop thugs with headshots one after another. Wrex paid no mind to anything, and rushed in the right flank headfirst, shotgun blazing whenever he ran into - or rather, over - someone. Shepard proved to be an expert at multitasking, managing to provide support to everyone at once. Ben, still somewhat hesitant to use lethal force, tried to dissuade anyone from fighting by charging left and firing his Heatblast gun near a thug's feet, only to stagger backwards from the surprisingly strong recoil, and cringe in disgust as he was treated to the sight of a man being melted alive by a glob of lava that had spread outwards like a blast from a shotgun.

Despite the gruesomeness of his accidental execution, it seemed to have somewhat the desired effect. Seeing one of their coworkers melted alive before their eyes must have been as disturbing for them as it was for Ben, as all the surviving thugs immediately dropped their guns and held their arms up in surrender. Even the Krogan that Wrex had been having a headbutting match with backed off and signaled for the thugs who weren't there to witness the melting to give up.

"That's...one way to win a fight, I guess." Ashley scratched her head as she and Kaidan kept to the right flank, both apparently deciding that approaching an enemy Krogan was safer than being anywhere near Ben and his lava gun.

"When I saw him make that weapon, I was kind of expecting a flamethrower, but this is just..." Kaidan trailed off as he nervously watched as the molten rock melted a hole into the floor.

"Luckily there's no one on the floor below us." Shepard remarked as she stared down the hole. "...Or the floor below that." She added, somewhat nervous this time.

"Yeah, please don't ever use that on the Citadel again." Garrus added as he cautiously edged along the wall and around the hole, despite it only being a foot and a half in diameter.

"What was that you said about not using lethal force?" Wrex joked, even as he eyed both the hole and Ben with a wary gaze.

"Shooting people isn't always the answer." Ben insisted as they made their way to the back of the bar, the cloned hero sparing a glance for the terrified workers and thugs before they moved on. "If I were all of you, I'd turn myself in to C-Sec within the next five minutes. Or else." He pointed at the hole he'd made for emphasis, prompting every last one of them to make a mad dash to surrender themselves to the police. "...You know, seeing that as almost worth the trauma of accidentally melting someone alive." He grinned as they went onward, quickly coming to an office area just beyond the small warehouse Fist kept. Hearing a very faint yet familiar whirring sound, Ben immediately shifted his arms into Feedback and ran for cover. "Turrets!" The warning was just in time to get the whole squad to get to cover before the automated mounted guns and a man - presumably Fist, as this was the most fortified area of the structure, and thus the best place for a cowardly crime lord to hide - began to fire.

"Our shields can take a beating long enough to take out those turrets, but why do get the feeling you have another idea Ben?!" Shepard shouted confidently at him over the sound of much gunfire.

"Because I do!" Ben shouted back as he plugged his finger into an electric outlet and began siphoning energy.

"Whatever you're doing, it's giving me access to the power grid for this area." Quasar informed Ben. "Just flip a switch here and..." The turrets deactivated, leaving Fist defenseless as the rest of the squad rushed him. "Done." The AI remarked proudly.

Ben whistled at how easy that had been as he changed his arms back. "Nicely done Quasar." He congratulated his new partner.

"Wait! Don't kill me, I surrender!" Fist panicked when the squad had him injured and backed into a corner.

Ben, never one to pass up a chance to play bad cop, turned his arm into a Heatblast gun again, and pointed the scorching hot weapon at Fist's face. "This little number melted one of your men alive in a single shot, and still had enough heat left to burn a hole through two floors of the Citadel. I'd tell us about the Quarian if I were you."

"She's not here, I don't know where she is, that's the truth!" Fist shook his head in terror, not wanting to test the weapon that was burning through his suit's heat shields just by being near his face. "But I do know where you can find her!" He hastily added. "The Quarian isn't here, said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself."

"I thought nobody ever met the Shadow Broker in person." Ben remarked as he glanced at the rest of the squad, every one of them shaking their heads 'no'. "But I'm guessing this Quarian didn't know that."

"She didn't, and she refused to listen when I told her that." Fist remarked as he gathered the strength and courage to stand up. "I told her I'd set up a meeting, but when she shows up, it'll be Saren's men waiting for her."

Ben deactivated his DNA before switching to Fourarms, roughly grabbing Fist and holding him high against the wall. "Here's what's gonna happen now: First, you're gonna tell me where the Quarian is. Second, you're gonna go down to C-Sec, and you're gonna confess to every crime you've ever committed, especially whatever deal it is you had with Saren. Otherwise my Krogan friend here is gonna do what the Shadow Broker hired him to do to you, and I think you know exactly what that is."

"Here in the wards, the back alley by the markets!" Fist panicked. "She's supposed to meet them right now, you can make it if you hurry!"

"Pleasure doing business with you." Ben remarked before throwing Fist into one of his own deactivated turrets. "Let's move!" He commanded - despite having no official authority to lead the squad - as he rushed off, everyone else following after him.

Before rushing after Ben, Wrex paused as he glared as the currently semi-conscious Fist. "...You're lucky I'm suddenly more afraid of Ben than I am of the Shadow Broker. Now get the hell down to C-Sec and turn yourself in!" As Wrex rushed to catch up with the rest of the squad, some part of Fist's mind registered that if a Krogan with an age in the low to mid quadruple digits feared someone completely new to the galactic community over the long standing boogeyman that was the Shadow Broker, he'd be wise to do as Ben said.

 **...**

"I thought we got rid of these guys already!" Ashley shouted angrily as she gunned down one of the many thugs swarming into Chora's Den.

"We did, these must be more of Saren's goons!" Shepard remarked as she threw a grenade at a cluster of thugs, taking three out at once.

"We don't have time for this!" Ben growled as his Feedback gun electrocuted one thug to death, only for the electricity to chain to another thug and kill him too.

"Why don't you try melting a few of them like you did last time?" Wrex joked as he headbutted one guy so hard his skull exploded.

"I thought we agreed not to do that on the Citadel anymore!" Kaidan half-pleaded as he biotically slammed two thugs into a wall, where they were quickly snipped through their skulls by Garrus.

"I'll go ahead, you guys catch up!" Ben declared once the room was clear of enemies, sprouting Stinkfly wings from his back and flapping them to hover just above the ground at high speed.

"What did we talk about before about running off on our own?!" Shepard barked at Ben reflexively, before she remembered a split second later that time was of the essence. "Nevermind, just save the Quarian!"

"Don't need to tell me twice." Ben whispered to himself as he flew across the room diagonally, completely bypassing the bridges. Rushing through the sliding doors, up the stairs, and down the dimly lit corridor, he quickly spotted a Turian talking to someone else, and sped forward.

"Did you bring it?" The Turian questioned the Quarian in a rude tone.

"Where's the Shadow Broker?" The Quarian asked, slightly nervous at the situation. "Where's Fist?" He voice turned suspicious.

"They'll be here." The Turian remarked dismissively as he ran his hand down the Quarian's suit, only to get it slapped away. "Where's the evidEEEEENNCEEEEE!" He was cut off as Ben flew into his side and rammed him to the ground, Diamondhead shoulder first.

Though visibly shocked - even with her face obscured by her suit - by the sudden attack, the Quarian was quick to run for cover and fire a few shots behind her as she went when two heavily armored Salarians came out from behind a large metal crate. Retracting his Stinkfly DNA, Ben summoned his Bloxx-lobber to mix with his Diamondhead arm, and began firing off diamonds at the Salarians like an assault rifle. While their simultaneous fire did wear down his shields to half strength, between his own weaponry and the support of the surprisingly well armed and prepared Quarian, the Salarians and their Turian boss were quickly killed before they could do any real damage to the improvised pair.

Ben grinned as he dusted himself off, making a show of how casually he had saved the Quarian. "Never fear, your hero is heeeree~" He trailed off in a daze when he took a second to actually look at the Quarian - _Not just Quarian. Woman._ Ben corrected himself - and found himself immediately star struck. Those long, shapely legs, those bodacious hips supporting that criminally thin waist, the belts, bands, and purple textiles serving who knows or cares what purposes other than making her ten times more appealing than she already was, and that hood! Ben knew from experience with Julie that a hood could really bring a woman's look together, and this lovely Quarian somehow made it even better when put together with the tinted helmet obscuring her face. He was so lost in her beauty that it took him several seconds to realize she was talking to him. "I'm sorry! What was that you were saying?" He shook his head and straightened himself up, not wanting to make a bad first impression.

The Quarian tilted her head and repeated herself. "I was saying that Fist set me up." She spoke in a voice that was slightly distorted by an electronic filter, but with a much more adorable tone than Ben had heard from the filters of any Volus. "And that it was pretty stupid of me to trust him." She rubbed her arm nervously, her anger at the attack having dissolved into shame for falling for such an obvious trap in the first place. "That aside though, who the hell are you? And what was that thing you did with the crystals?"

"He's Ben Tennyson, extra-galactic ambassador." Shepard announced, she and the rest of the squad having finally caught up with him. "And I'm Commander Shepard, System's Alliance. We're looking for evidence to prove Saren's a traitor."

"Keelah, he's the ambassador from Andromeda?!" The Quarian repeated in shock as she stared at Ben, who found himself blushing under her gaze. "And you're looking for..." She trailed off for a moment before approaching him. "In that case, I have a chance to repay you for saving my life." She stopped and shook her head. "But not here, we need to get to somewhere safe."

"We can take her to the Human Embassy." Kaidan suggested eagerly.

"Good thinking." Garrus seconded the idea. "The Human ambassador will want to see whatever proof you have anyway."

"What are we waiting for then?" Ben asked rhetorically as he happily wrapped an arm around the Quarian's shoulder. "Quasar, what's the quickest way to the Human Embassy?" When the AI didn't speak up for several seconds, Ben began to get worried. "Quasar, are you still there buddy?"

"Who's Quasar?" The Quarian inquired curiously, causing the rest of the squad who knew about the AI to glance nervously at each other, none of them eager to see how this would play out.

"I am Quasar." The AI spoke as a hologram of his Omnitrix shaped avatar projected from Ben's shoulder. "I apologize for the delay in introducing myself, but I noticed that Ben's hormone levels and heart rate indicated an immediate physical attraction to you, and I did not wish to hinder my master's potential attempts to court you by prematurely revealing my existence as an AI to a species known for their hatred of my kind."

"You-?! You use AIs?!" The Quarian threw Ben's arm off of her and back away frantically, aiming her shotgun at him for several tense seconds before something else Quasar had said registered and she lowered her gun in what appeared to be shock and disbelief. "Wait a second; you're attracted to me?" She tilted her head at Ben, even less sure how to deal with this information than she was at the presence of an AI.

"This is gonna be a long walk back to the Embassies." Garrus shook his head tiredly.

"This is the first and hopefully last time I'm ever gonna say this in all my 1,400 or so years, but I agree with the Turian." Wrex grunted in reluctant agreement.

 **...**

 **Citadel Embassies - Human Office**

As Garrus had predicted, the trip back to the Embassies felt much longer than it actually was, with the Quarian following the group without a word, despite Ben's best efforts to get her to open up. She didn't even tell them her name, but she still stayed with the group, and even didn't try to avoid Ben when he kept explaining to her how things were in Andromeda - especially regarding organic/synthetic relations, which everyone listened to with varying degrees of interest - and that was enough for Shepard. Still, when they entered Udina's office, she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't at least a little nervous that the Quarian hadn't said a word this whole time.

"You're not making my life easy, Shepard." Ambassador Udina shook his head tiredly, not even turning around to address the squad when they entered. "Firefights in the wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den. Do you know how-" When he finally turned around to address them, he spotted the Quarian and gave a questioning look. "Who's this, a Quarian?" He questioned, disapproval evident in his tone. "What are you up to, Shepard?"

"It was my idea to bring her here." Ben stepped forward immediately, not liking the way Udina was talking about the Quarian. "She has the evidence we need on Saren, plus I was hoping to get in contact with the Quarians soon anyway. One of the prime directives I was given in my flash training was to help negotiate peace between the Geth and the rest of your galaxy, and get the Quarians back on their homeworld without any bloodshed." He turned to said Quarian and gave her a wink with his left eye, once again masking his tell.

It was a testament to Udina's mental fortitude that he didn't immediately balk at the idea of anyone making peace with the Geth, especially in light of the massacre at Eden Prime, and instead focus on the more pressing issue at hand. "Really?" He managed to sound somewhat dignified and collected as he turned his attention to the Quarian. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning, Miss..."

"...My name is Tali." The Quarian introduced herself with a bizarre and awkward mixture of hesitation and formality. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"We don't see many Quarians here." Udina noted curiously. "Why did you leave the Flotilla?"

"She's probably here on her Pilgrimage." Ben spoke on Tali's behalf, surprising her with his knowledge of her culture. "It's like a right of passage for Quarians. They leave their fleet to bring back something of value to their people. It's actually kinda awesome how everyone in their society contributes as much as they can to the group. Not many people could manage such loyalty and dedication under such desperate times and limited resources." He smiled at Tali, who could only look away and wring her hands tensely.

"...Ambassador Tennyson is correct." Tali eventually nodded to Udina. "During my travels I began hearing reports of Geth. Since they drove my people into exile, the Geth have never ventured beyond the Veil..." She paused as she looked down at her open hands, and then to Ben. "...In hindsight, Ambassador Tennyson might have a point about most Geth not being interested in conflict with organics, it's certainly an argument that's been raised on the Flotilla more than a few times. Still, even if the Geth that left the Veil only represent a small portion of their numbers, their sudden appearance made me curious." She turned back to Udina, and began talking much more evenly. "I tracked a patrol of Geth to an uncharted world, I waited for one to become separated from its unit, then I disabled it and removed its memory core."

"I was under the assumption that Geth overloaded their memory cores when their mobile platforms are rendered inoperable." Quasar popped up from Ben's shoulder again, catching Udina and Anderson by surprise. "May I inquire as to how Miss Zorah was able to preserve the memory core?"

"What in blazes is that?" Anderson asked hotly as he pointed at Quasar's avatar.

"I am Quasar, Ambassador Tennyson's AI assistant." The hologram answered cordially. "As the creation and existence of AIs is entirely legal in Andromeda, I trust there will be no problem in my continued assistance of Ambassador Tennyson?"

"Of...course not." Udina hissed tensely as he pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling a massive headache coming on from how he predicted the Council to react to this new information. "Now, about the data?"

"My people created the Geth." Tali answered calmly, already somewhat used to Quasar by now. "If we're quick, careful, and lucky small caches of data can sometimes be saved." The eyes of Quasar's avatar widened marginally in intrigue, no doubt eager to observe and study the data for himself. "Most of the core was wiped clean, but I salvaged something from its audio banks." She explained as she began to fiddle with her Omni-tool.

"Eden Prime was a major victory." Saren's smug voice came out loud and clear from the recorded data. "The Beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"That's Saren's voice!" Anderson noted excitedly. "This proves he was involved in the attack!"

"He said Eden Prime brought him one step closer to finding the Conduit." Jane noted curiously. "Any idea what that means?"

"If there is any further dialogue in the recovered data, perhaps it will reveal the answer to your inquiry." Quasar suggested helpfully. "If nothing else, further analysis of the recording could help us to predict Saren's next move.

"The AI...Quasar is right." Tali added as she began to work her Omni-tool again. "Saren wasn't working alone." The first part of the recording replayed, exactly the same as before, only for a new, more feminine voice to respond to Saren's comment.

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers." The female voice oozed in a half-seductive/half-eager tone.

"I don't recognize that other voice." Udina noted worriedly. "The one talking about 'Reapers'."

"Reaper has multiple known meanings." Quasar interjected stoically. "Given the context of Saren's actions, it is likely a symbolic reference to the human idea of a personification of Death. Ergo, 'Reapers', due to being spoken of in the plural sense, likely refers to either a superweapon capable of being mass produced, or some manner of species capable of destruction and/or death on a massive scale."

"And since the information about these Reapers was found on a Prothean Relic, I'd bet dollars to donuts that we've just stumbled upon the reason there are no more Protheans." Ben hypothesized grimly from the available information. _Now I have a name to put to the threat Paradox sent me here to stop. All I need now is a face, and I'm betting it's ugly as shit._ He thought to himself.

"It fits with the rest of the data I recovered from the memory core." Tali shook her head morosely. "According to the memory core, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race, that existed 50,000 years ago." Her tone became more hot and energized at this point. "The Reapers hunted the Protheans to total extinction, and then they vanished!" Her voice then deflated into uncertainty. "At least, that's what the Geth believe."

"Sounds a little far fetched." Udina crossed his arms skeptically, even as the gears in Ben's head began turning rapidly.

"Sound more like the massive fleet of warships my ship's sensors picked up just outside the edge of your galaxy on my voyage here." Ben lied smoothly, immediately drawing all eyes to him in shock. "...What? You didn't know about those?" He chuckled playfully, even as he struggled not to give anything away with his body language. _It's the only possibility that make sense after all._ He thought to himself, trying to justify the lie to himself enough to make his body believe it. _Where else would a mechanical species be able to guarantee they'd be able to stay hidden all that time in a galaxy that hasn't developed inter-galactic travel?_

"The vision on Eden Prime." Jane gasped worriedly as she wiped away the sweat she didn't know was forming on her brow. "I understand it now. I saw the Protheans being wiped out by the Reapers."

"The Geth revere the Reapers as Gods." Tali further explained her findings. "The pinnacle on non-organic life. And they believe Saren knows how to bring the Reapers back." She finished grimly.

"The Council is just going to love this." Udina groaned in exasperation.

"The Reapers are a threat to every species in Citadel space!" Jane remarked fiercely. "We have to tell them!"

"Assuming they even believe us." Ben rolled his eyes tiredly. "From our interactions so far, the Council strike me as...difficult at best. Plus, I know I said that my ship detected their fleet just outside the galaxy, but..."

"But what?" Jane asked worriedly.

"Saren shot my ship down just above Eden Prime." Ben continued to add to his fabricated backstory, eliciting groans of complaint from everyone present. "Why do you think I landed there in the first place in the middle of an attack? Other than to make a good first impression of course."

"Is there any chance we can salvage at least some of your ship?" Udina inquired a little too eagerly, the prospect of technology from another galaxy too tempting for the politician in him to resist.

"Saren's definitely beaten you to it by now." Anderson immediately shot down Udina's plans, visibly deflating the man. "He would never let a chance like that pass him by, but this evidence proves he's a traitor, which means we can take it back from him once we get our hands on him."

"The Captain's right." Udina immediately latched onto his new hope. "We need to present this to the Council right away."

"What about Tali?" Ben asked, still worried for the poor girl's safety, as well as her people's prosperity. "We couldn't have done this without her help."

"...You saw me in the alley Ambassador." Tali hesitantly turned to Ben. "You know what I can do. Let me come with you."

"What about your Pilgrimage?" Ben asked curiously. "And your issues with..." He gestured awkwardly to Quasar's avatar.

"The Pilgrimage proves we are willing to give of ourselves, for the greater good." Tali replied resolutely. "What does it say about me if I turn my back on this?! Saren is a danger to the entire galaxy, my Pilgrimage can wait. As for Quasar..." She hesitated briefly, looking down at the ground before shooting back up, the faint glow of her eyes looking twice as intense. "If one of the reasons you're here is to get my people back on our homeworld, and help us to...make peace...with the Geth..." She clenched and unclenched her hands, obviously having trouble saying what she had to. "...Every Quarian dreams of getting back our homeworld someday, or failing that, at least a world we can comfortably live on, and to call our own. If we can accomplish that by working with AIs instead of against them...I have to at least TRY to get over my hatred of them."

Even though they had just met her, and she had stayed quiet most of that time, Jane could see how much the young Quarian hated AIs for what they had taken from her people, and just how hard she had to fight against herself to say such simple yet difficult words. Such a complete turnabout of attitude just to grasp onto the mere hope of regaining her homeworld someday was enough to make even Jane herself reevaluate her stance on AIs, a truly noteworthy feat considering the horrors she saw Geth commit on Eden Prime less than a full day prior. Faced with such conviction, Jane could only choose one response. "Welcome to the team, Tali'Zorah."

"Thanks." Tali remarked with mild excitement and eagerness as she stood between Shepard and Ben. "You won't regret this."

"I know Ben certainly won't regret this." Garrus chuckled as he nudged the clone hero teasingly, causing Ben and Tali to both struggle to avoid eye contact with anyone, especially each other.

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you Garrus?" Ben remarked bitterly, seeing a surprising amount of his old friend Kevin in the Turian.

"Not a chance." Garrus said blithely.

"I have a shotgun." Tali darkly reminded Garrus, causing everyone else to burst into laughter at the surprisingly hilarious sight of a frightened Turian.

 **Author's Notes: Admit it, your first reaction to Tali was exactly the same as Ben's was. Also, who else REALLY wants to see Shepard follow through on her threat against Harkin? Who knows, maybe you'll see it happen when Harkin shows up making trouble in the sequel?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Here we go! Finally, our main characters are going to get off the Citadel, and onward with their epic adventures. But first, we get to enjoy more of the Council being made to look like the completely incompetent idiots they are. Won't that be fun?**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 5

The Three Leads

 **Citadel Council Lobby**

Shortly after leaving Udina's office to make their way to the Council Chambers, Shepard and her squad were pulled aside by the Elcor Ambassador Calyn, who thanked them for their assistance in clearing up the issues between Xeltan, Septimus, and the Sha'ira, even if it was mostly Ben who took all the initiative on that front. After they finished talking with the good Ambassador and continued on their way, they were quickly pulled aside in the lobby by a dark-skinned human.

"Excuse me, Commander Shepard." The man said as he approached the squad. "My name is Samesh Bhatia. Excuse the intrusion, but I have nowhere else to turn."

"This sounds urgent, what can I help you with?" Shepard inquired kindly.

"My wife was a marine," Samesh began as he wrung his hands. "She was in the 212 on Eden Prime."

"Wait. The 212?" Ashley stepped forward in shock. "Your wife was Serviceman Nirali Bhatia? I'm Gunnery Chief Ashley Willians, I served in her unit."

"Chief Williams?" Samesh repeated in just as much shock. "It is a pleasure. Nirali spoke of you with great respect."

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Bhatia." Ashley offered her sincere condolences, slightly saddening the rest of the squad at the grim reminder of the tragedy of Eden Prime. "Nirali was a good woman. What can we do for you?"

"I've requested that my wife's body be returned to me for cremation, but the military has refused my request." Samesh explained in distress.

"Why did they refuse your request?" Jane asked, her curiosity outweighing her anger. "They must have given you some kind of reason."

"I don't know." Samesh shook his head tiredly. "All I know is that they have declared it impossible for my wife to be returned to me."

"Maybe she was one of the Geth's victims." Ben suggested sadly. "I doubt there would be anything left to send home after...that." He hated having to say this, especially when he saw Samesh look even more grief stricken at his remark.

"We don't know anything for certain yet." Ashley elbowed Ben in the ribs none too softly. "I wasn't there when the Alliance military gathered up the fallen, but we'll definitely look into it."

"The man in charge of my case is Mr. Bosker." Samesh explained. "When I last saw him, he was in the expensive bar over there." He pointed to his left. "Thank you for your time. I just want to give my wife a proper funeral and the respect she deserves."

Nodding a respectful goodbye to Mr. Bhatia, Jane ushered the squad onto a brief detour in the direction the man had pointed out. When they reached their destination, it didn't take long for her to pinpoint the man they were looking for reclining against a wall.

"My goodness, you're Commander Shepard." Mr. Bosker remarked in awe and stood at attention at her approach. "Your activities made for quite a briefing in the Diplomatic Corps. Is there something I can do to assist you?"

"I'm here on behalf of Samesh Bhatia, for his wife Nirali." Shepard explained as curtly and diplomatically as she could manage given the sensitive subject.

To his credit, Mr. Bosker looked regretful as he began to explain. "Serviceman Nirali Bhatia died on Eden Prime, as Mr. Bhatia no doubt told you. Her wounds are inconsistent with any type of weapons damage we've seen before. That is why her body is being held."

"You think her body might be dangerous, or contaminated?" Shepard inquired in concern.

"No Commander." Mr. Bosker denied the suspicion. "Nirali Bhatia is not dangerous. Her body is in fact extremely valuable to the Alliance. The test we're conducting may lead to better defense against Geth attacks." He explained with a small amount of passion, obviously believing that anything done to the corpse would be worth the payoff of new technology, and everyone in the squad couldn't help but admit that he had at least some good reason to think so. "Respectfully, Serviceman Bhatia may save more lives in death than she did in life."

"I probably would have phrased it better myself, but the man may have a good point." Ben reluctantly admitted. "If what we gathered from the data we listened to in Udina's office is even the slightest bit accurate, we may need every advantage we can get in the foreseeable future." Sensing the weight his remark had had on the squad, Ben tried to backpedal a little bit. "Still, we don't know how long this research might take, or what exactly the results of the research might be. Plus, they probably have more than just her body to study, will one body really make that much of a difference?"

"This is a long term study." Mr. Bosker explained evenly, trying hard to get his point across without being to harsh. "I wouldn't expect the bodies to be released for a year or longer. If we're lucky though, we'll actually realize usable technology from this study in a few years. As for the number of bodies..." Bosker hesitated to steady his nerves. "Very few bodies had this new type of weapon damage, and very few were in good enough condition to study. Beyond that, we need as many bodies as we can to get a reasonable sample size."

This information left Ben - and indeed, the entire squad - torn as to what to do. _On the one hand, Mr. Bhatia has a right to give his wife a proper funeral._ Ben thought sympathetically. _On the other hand, Paradox said I'd need a few years to save this version of the Milky Way, and the results of this study will probably be ready by then, but I still don't know exactly when these Reapers that he no doubt sent me here to stop will arrive, or how long their invasion will last._ The more pragmatic side of him debated. Just as he was about to start yanking his beard in frustration over how to call this, he subconsciously glanced at Tali. The sight of the lovely young Quarian, and the visual reminder of how much harm evil AIs like the Reapers could cause, made the choice he had to make here all the more real and personal.

"Keep her body for study." Ben declared resolutely, surprising everyone with just how serious and take charge the normally friendly and playful hero was acting. "You need whatever technology her body can provide more than Mr. Bhatia needs closure."

"Who put you in charge?" Ashley asked sternly, reminding him that he was technically an outside in all of this.

"Nobody put me in charge, but we all have to put aside ourselves for the greater good sometimes." Ben smiled at Tali. "The smartest and strongest person I've met since I arrived in this galaxy taught me that."

"What? Me?" Tali fidgeted and babbled nervously, which Ben found absolutely adorable and irresistible. "I don't, I'm not all that, shut up! Stop teasing me!" She shoved Ben ineffectively, the adorableness that is Tali sending a soft wave of laughter and relief through the rest of the squad.

"Even so, I don't think it's too much to ask for some kind of compromise here." Ben continued diplomatically. "In exchange for being allowed to keep her body for now, Mr. Bhatia deserves some kind of compensation, maybe a portion of the profits from any technology developed by the study?"

"That sounds fair." Bosker eventually consented. "I should also explain to him what we're doing with her body, maybe help him figure out some other way to come to terms with her passing until the study is complete."

"If it helps, Nirali said she and her husband always wanted to open up a restaurant after she finished her tour of duty." Ashley added helpfully. "Maybe some of the money earned from the research could be put towards making that dream happen."

"That's a great idea, I'll go talk with Mr. Bhatia about it right now." Bosker nodded enthusiastically. "Thank you, all of you. You've given me a lot to think about how I should do my job in the future. It can't just be about statistics, I have to think about the people and how to find a solution everyone can work with too." With that said and done, he left to go help Mr. Bhatia as much as he could.

"C'mon loverboy." Jane playfully elbowed Ben. "We should go now. We've still got time before the Council will hear us out again, and I seem to recall you still have a few missions to complete." With that, the squad made tracks to their next destination. On their way to the transit, the squad felt a sense of satisfaction as they saw Mr. Bhatia being comforted by Mr. Bosker, the former grieving his lost wife, and the latter doing everything he can to help the other honor a great woman.

 **...**

 **C-Sec - Chellick's Office**

"Ambassador, I hear you have something for me." Chellick remarked eagerly.

"You guys really do have eyes and ears everywhere." Ben grinned playfully as he handed off the shipment to the officer.

"All part of the job." Chellick chuckled as he gave the contraband a once over. "Excellent, this is everything I need." He paused hesitantly as he looked at the pile of mods. "...Hm, maybe more than I need. Here Ambassador, take this." He offered one of the mods to Ben, who looked at a loss as to what to do with it. "I won't need it, and you've earned some payment for your work. Maybe give it to one of your many friends, I get the feeling they're gonna need it if they're working with you." He said as he visually scanned the rest of the squad. "As for Jenna, I'll make sure we get her out of Chora's Den immediately. Now I need to get these mods into evidence, thanks again Tennyson." He excused himself as he got up from his desk and carried off the mods.

"I'll just take that." Jane said playfully as she snatched the mod from Ben's hands. "I doubt a weapon mod will do much good for a living weapon, whereas the rest of us aren't so lucky as to be able to shoot molten lava from our fingers."

"Wait. He can do what with his fingers?" Tali parroted nervously, eyeing Ben's ever shifting hands with a slight trepidation.

 **...**

 **Upper Wards**

"Remind me again why we're here." Wrex asked disinterestedly, clearly bored from not having shot at or headbutted anything for several minutes now.

"Because I snagged a little goodbye present from Fist's office before we left." Jane said mischievously as wiggled an OSD between her fingers. "And because Mr. I-have-to-help-everyone promised to do some muckraking for a reporter." She ribbed Ben.

"Hey, I just stopped for an interview, which she didn't want." Ben corrected her as he rubbed his side where she had ribbed him. "You're the one who offered to get her some dirt just to get us out of there more quickly." He reminded her as they reached Emily Wong.

"Word on the street is that you've been busy." Emily smiled coyly at the squad, Shepard in particular. "Congratulations on taking down Fist. I was sure he was a big player in anything going on here. Did you find anything in his office that could help me?"

"These OSDs might have the information you're looking for." Jane answered with a slight hint of smugness as she handed off the devices in question.

"You've got Fist's files?" Emily gasped in astonishment as she cradled the OSDs like a precious treasure. "This could be even bigger than I'd hoped! Here Commander, for your trouble." She said gratefully as she transferred some credits to Shepard's Omni-tool.

"Are you sure you don't want an interview with me?" Ben remade his earlier offer, still eager to try and get some good publicity for once. "I've got a lot of data on some of the species living in Andromeda if you want them."

"Exclusive? You talk to me before you talk to anyone else?" Emily inquired, much more interested in what he had to say now than before. "That would be worth quite a bit, and I'd be very happy to compensate you accordingly. Here you are." She grinned ask she transferred credits to Ben. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I should go see what's on these disks." Excusing herself promptly, she made a beeline for who knows where.

"And just like that, the press loves me." Ben basked in his small victory.

"More like they love the idea of the species in Andromeda." Ashley immediately shot down his ego.

"To be fair, people made of living radiation or 30 meter tall giants would outshine almost any other story." Kaidan comforted the now sulking hero.

"The more I hear of your galaxy, the more I realize how small my people's conflict with the Geth seems." Tali shook her head in a blend of awe and sadness, driving a spike into Ben's conscience for his lie hurting the feelings of such a sweet woman, even if it was purely accidental.

 _I've got a mission to accomplish here._ Ben resolved himself as he forced that sliver of guilt down. _I can apologize for lying after I save the galaxy. Besides, if it helps the Quarians and the Geth make peace, then all the better._ That was the justification he went with as Quasar pinged in.

"Excuse me." The AI spoke over all their comms. "But our meeting with the Council will begin shortly. We should go there immediately in order to represent your case."

"You heard the man. Move out." Shepard barked the order and made for the nearest transit, the rest of the squad falling in behind her without a moment of hesitation or debate.

 **...**

 **Citadel Tower**

As was the case before, Anderson was awaiting their arrival at the stairway just below the podium where the Council would address major issues brought to their attention. "Come on." The captain ushered them forward. "Udina's presenting the Quarian's evidence to the Council."

As the whole squad made their way forward, Saren's irritating voice reached their ears, the recording of his guilt both angering the squad, while also giving them a slightly sadistic sense of vindication. They arrived behind Udina just as the recording finished in its entirety. "You wanted proof, there it is." The Human Ambassador remarked smugly and with withering contempt for the Council.

"This evidence is irrefutable, Ambassador." Councilor Sparatus shook his head, almost sounding legitimately unbiased in his delivery. "Saren will be stripped of his SPECTRE status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes."

"I recognize the other voice, the one speaking with Saren." Councilor Tevos turned to her Turian colleague, her voice wavering ever so slightly, as if in great distress, but just barely holding it in. "Matriarch Benezia."

"Why do I get the feeling that name is gonna mean even more trouble for us?" Ben asked rhetorically, not really directing his question at anyone in particular.

"Matriarchs are powerful Asari who have entered the final stage in their lives." Tevos answered Ben's open ended inquiry. "Revered for their wisdom and experience, they serve as guides and mentors to my people."

"And I'm guessing that this Benezia lady is gonna 'guide and mentor' your people off the edge of a cliff and into a pit of spikes now that she's working with Saren." Ben remarked sarcastically, the dark joke eliciting open laughter from Wrex, and barely restrained rage and fear from Tevos.

"Matriarch Benezia is a powerful biotic, and she had many followers." Tevos explained, her tone dead serious to get across the severity of the situation. "She will make a formidable ally for Saren."

"I'm more interested in the Reapers." Valern quickly added his two credits. "What do you know about them?"

"Only what was extracted from the Geth's memory core, and Ambassador Tennyson's report." Anderson answered curtly. "The Reapers were an ancient race of machines that wiped out the Protheans, then they retreated into Dark Space, beyond the scope of our ability to search for them, even to this day."

"The Geth - the ones that ventured beyond the veil at least - believe the Reapers are Gods, and Saren is the Prophet for their return." Shepard explained, her tone conveying absolute seriousness.

"We think the Conduit is the key to bringing them back." Anderson expanded upon the idea. "Most likely some sort of high powered Relay that links our galaxy to Dark Space, where Ambassador Tennyson said his ship detected they were hiding on his way to our galaxy." Ben, the only person here that knew this information was a bluff, found this explanation to be actually pretty plausible. He only hoped the Council found it believable as well, but given their track record thus far, he wasn't gonna hold his breath. "Saren's searching for it, that's why he attacked Eden Prime."

"Listen to what you're saying!" Sparatus returned fire angrily, apparently already running hot from the accusations against the best SPECTRE his people had even produced being proven true. "Saren wants to bring back the machine that wiped out all life in the galaxy?! Impossible! It has to be. Even assuming these 'Reapers' are hiding beyond our searching capabilities in Dark Space, why did they vanish? How come we've found no trace of their existence?" He folded his arms sternly. "If they were real, we'd have found something!"

"Objection!" Ben pointed boldly at Sparatus as the dramatic Ace Attorney began to play. "You say all of that, but in truth you have found a trace of their existence. The Prothean Beacons!" His bold statement left everyone in shock, and created an opening in their preconceived notions that he proceeded to tear away at. "Think about it for a moment: What could wipe out an advanced space-faring civilization that spanned an entire galaxy, only to vanish without a trace? Why would the Protheans leave behind these Beacons - data storage devices that can remain fully operational over 50,000 year later - in such well hidden yet resource rich locations?"

With every rhetorical question Ben asked, Sparatus felt his argument - and his knees - getting weaker. Slamming his open palms against the railing, Ben continued. "Give up? The only possible answer is that the Protheans knew their civilization was doomed, and wanted to give whatever civilization came after them a fighting chance against the Reapers!" Sparatus recoiled at the damning hypothesis and Ben's pointer finger. The other two Councilors also looked uneasy at the possibility, Tevos in particular looking a very pale shade of blue, not that anyone noticed. "As for why Saren and Benezia would want to bring them back, it's the same reason Saren sabotaged Anderson's SPECTRE test!" The entire Council flinched, Ben's prior demand for a formal apology from them to the good Captain and humanity as a whole should Saren be proven guilty still burning in their guts. "It's because they're afraid!"

For several long and tense seconds, everyone in the Presidium was frozen stiff, everyone seeing stars from the machine gun fire of accusations. Perhaps not surprisingly, Councilor Valern was the first to break the silence. "...They're...afraid you say?" The Salarian inquired thoughtfully. "Certainly, if these Reapers are real, then the threat they pose would be cause for even the most hardened veterans to be nervous at the very least." His fellow Councilors turned to him in shock, most likely stunned that he would even consider the notion that something as outlandish as the Reapers were real. "But if they are afraid, why try to bring them back? Why not warn us to prepare instead?"

"Salarians think more quickly than other species, so I'm guessing that you already have as good a guess as Ben and I do." Shepard remarked playfully as the pieces began to fall into place.

"They're attempting to bargain with the Reapers." Valern surmised, confident in his assessment, as Ben and Shepard surely were. "Prove that their species - or at least certain members of them - are more useful to the Reapers alive than dead. Such an attempt at negotiation is entirely illogical, short-sighted, selfish, and foolish, especially considering that they have already wiped out at least one civilization of comparable, if not greater size to our own...Assuming your hypothesis is correct, of course." He remarked in the most fair and impartial tone spoken since the hearing began.

"I tried to warn you about Saren, and you refused to face the truth." Shepard reminded the Council, as if they even needed the bitter reminder at this point. "Don't make the same mistake again."

"...This is different." Tevos quickly managed to regain her footing, though it was still somewhat shaky and forced.

"Is it really though?" Valern objected to his fellow Councilor's dismissal, earning him a sharp glare from her that he treated as her unable to form a logical counterargument.

Trying her best to ignore Valern ignoring her warning, Tevos continued. "...You proved Saren betrayed the Council, we all agree he's using the Geth to search for the Conduit, but we don't really know why."

"The evidence, circumstantial though it may be, seems to suggest a sound hypothesis." Valern glanced at Tevos and Sparatus dismissively, both of whom looked to be on the brink of trying to throttle their Salarian counterpart. "If nothing else, the threat posed by Saren, Benezia, and the Geth working together should give us all reason to bolster our defenses."

"Thank you for your support Councilor Valern." Ben nodded appreciatively, glad to see at least one of the Councilors was willing to listen to reason, even if it was the member whose species was best known for their more logic-based mindset.

"Saren is a rogue agent on the run for his life!" Sparatus declared a bit more fiercely than he likely meant to. "He no longer has the rights or resources of a SPECTRE. The Council has stripped him of his position."

"That is NOT good enough!" Udina countered the Turian's flimsy argument contemptuously. "You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse! Send your fleet in!"

"A fleet cannot track down one man." Valern shook his head neutrally. "Especially not a man who has proven time and again to be one of the single most dangerous individuals in the galaxy, with or without Council support." Valern didn't need to look to know that Sparatus was glaring at him. "Especially when that man has the support of a rogue Asari Matriarch of notable influence." With Tevos now joining her Turian counterpart in glaring at him, Valern realized that nothing he said or did now could make the other two Councilors any angrier at him than they already were. Still, if his brief debate with Ambassador Tennyson over the credibility of a panicked dockworker/smuggler caught napping on the job were any indication, he and his fellow Councilors had become far to complacent in their authority. As much as it pained him to admit it, he had to accept that they had gotten too used to always getting their way, using whatever argument was convenient to their narrative, while ignoring those very same arguments the moment they became inconvenient to them.

Still, he wasn't naive - at least, not anymore - and knew that he had only arrived at this conclusion due to his comparatively faster thought process. His fellow Councilors were unlikely to realize their hubris the same way he had unless forced to confront it time and again. Thus, he decided to go all in on this, just in case the increasingly likely probability of the Reapers proved to be true. "With all due respect to Ambassador Udina and my fellow Councilors, a rogue SPECTRE is best dealt with by an active SPECTRE."

"No! It's too soon!" Sparatus protested angrily, his outrage at the proceedings thus far, and the perceived betrayal of his Salarian counterpart getting the better of him. "Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the SPECTREs!"

"I seem to recall a similar sentiment being advocated by Saren after he sabotaged my candidacy." Anderson spoke up, the chance to vindicate himself over a bunch of stuffy old politicians too good to pass up. "I'm still waiting for that public apology you three owe me, by the way." Sparatus and Tevos both looked to be two seconds away from blowing a gasket, while Valern had already cast his vote in favor of allowing it on the panel in front of him, not even bothering to address his fellow Councilor's opinions on the matter. Reluctantly, the other two Councilors followed suit, if only to save what little face they had left.

"Commander Shepard, step forward." Tevos spoke with all the remaining authority and dignity she could muster. Shepard made no move to immediately comply with the Asari's order, only doing so after getting a nonverbal go-ahead from Anderson. As spectators gathered above to discuss what they were witnessing in hushed whispers, Tevos began to speak. "It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel."

"SPECTREs are not trained, but chosen." Valern explained with respect and dignity, far more than Tevos or Sparatus had shown thus far since Shepard had met them. "Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle. Those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file."

"SPECTREs are an ideal." Tevos continued. "A symbol, the embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will."

"Try telling that to Saren!" Ben interjected just as Sparatus was about to speak, pissing off the Turian Councilor that someone stole his thunder and ruined the gravitas of the whole moment, while Wrex just laughed loudly in the background, and the rest of the squad could barely hold in their snickering. "Just skip all this fanfare and make Shepard a SPECTRE already! At this point, I think it's pretty damn clear that none of us could give a shit about what any of you other than Valern have to say." Just as Sparatus was about to blow a gasket for the umpteenth time in this meeting, Tevos made a show of clearing her throat.

"Perhaps Ambassador Tennyson has a point, Sparatus." The Asari Councilor struggled to pacify the irate Turian before things got even more awkward for them. "These proceedings have gone on long enough already. Best to wrap things up before words are said that would be regretted at a later date."

"I can work with that." Shepard grinned, glad to finally be done with all this nonsense should honestly couldn't care less about at this point.

"We're sending you into the Traverse after Saren." Valern spoke with a small amount of mirth in his voice. "He is a fugitive from justice, so you are authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate him."

"Any idea where to find him?" Shepard asked, not really expecting any promising information after the Council's lackluster performance thus far.

"We will forward any relevant files to Ambassador Udina." Sparatus answered tiredly.

"This meeting of the Council is adjourned." Tevos announced with no small amount of relief. Leaving them with nothing more than a slight nod of acknowledgement, Shepard and the rest made their way back down the stairs.

"Congratulations Commander." Anderson shook his apprentice's hand warmly once they were out of earshot of the Council.

"We've got a lot of work to do, Shepard." Udina was quick to pull them all back to the matter at hand. "You're going to need a ship, a crew, supplies..."

"Done, done, and done." Ben gave Jane a slightly too firm pat on the back, partly to reassure her, and partly to get back at her for all the times she elbowed him. "We've got the Normandy, her crew, everyone here, and we'll let Udina worry about stocking up the Normandy."

"You...plan to go with them Ambassador?" Udina addressed Ben in shock. "But surely a man of your stature would have more pressing matters to address here than-"

"Leave addressing those matters to us, Ambassador Udina." General Septimus interjected as he, Sha'ira, Xeltan, Chorban and Jahleed walked up to them, surprising even Ben at the oddity of the group. "Ambassador Tennyson has already briefed us on some of the topics he wishes to discuss with the Council, and we would be more than happy to voice these topics as best we can on his behalf."

"Between advocating AI rights, as well as studying and disseminating the results of the research we're conducting on the Keepers, there will be enough subject matter for us to keep the Council on their toes until well after Saren is dealt with." Chorban remarked confidently.

"And I am to presume that you five are...acquaintances of Ambassador Tennyson?" Udina inquired nervously.

"The good Ambassador aided and guided us each in ways that even I could not hope to parallel." Sha'ira nodded to Ben respectfully, before gesturing to Chorban and Jahleed. "When my beloved Septimus and I happened across these two ambitious scientists while he was expressing his apologies to Xeltan, I knew it could only be the work of a grander design that we work together to repay his kindness."

"With tremendous gratitude: Leave convincing the Council of your views to us." Xeltan spoke as only an Elcor could. "While we cannot yet say for certain what significance the research being conducted on the Keepers may yield, or whether or not the Geth are beyond peacefully negotiating with, we will endeavor to keep them off your back while you are conducting your own business."

"Thanks you guys, this means a lot to us." Ben smiled warmly at the odd assembly of people before him, when suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Hey Quasar, are you keeping records on all the people I've been dealing with since I got here?" He asked his AI companion.

"Your suit has records of all your interactions since arriving on Eden Prime." Quasar answered knowingly. "Based on the context of this conversation, I assume that you want me to forward these five the contact information of Human reporter Emily Wong, Human doctor Chloe Michel, Salarian programmer Schells, Volus financial adviser Barla Von, and Turian C-Sec officer Chellick."

"...Maybe leave out Barla Von." Ben remarked cautiously. "There's just something about this whole Shadow Broker business that doesn't sit right with me."

"Acknowledged. Forwarding relevant data." Quasar accepted his instructions. "Will there be anything else?"

"Not right now, Quasar." Ben replied politely. "You can go back to doing your own thing."

"Very well." Quasar acknowledged. "Then I will continue using my gambling algorithms to accumulate funds playing extranet Quasar." He said, stunning everyone present at his frankness.

"Let's pretend we didn't just hear that." Jahleed suggested to his new colleagues, quickly getting affirmative responses before the odd group of five made their way to the Presidium to address an already mentally exhausted Council with further stress.

"...Come Anderson, we have much we need to do to set everything up." Udina addressed his colleague, getting an affirmative nod from the good Captain before they made their own way to their own objectives.

"I thought the Ambassador would be a little more grateful." Tali audibly frowned beneath her mask. "He didn't even thank you."

"Until we catch Saren we haven't done anything." Jane remarked bitterly, though her anger was directed firmly at Saren rather than Udina. "Come on everybody."

"We're with you all the way, Commander." Kaidan remarked as he and Ashley saluted, while the rest, including Ben, just nodded eagerly, every one of them raring and ready to hunt down Saren.

Once the squad finally reached the bottom of the stairway, two things happened: First, Sparatus roared in outrage and frustration - no doubt in response to something said by Ben's new friends - so loud that it echoed through the entire Presidium. Second, while turning to look back in the direction of the shouting Turian Councilor, Shepard spotted a familiar face to her right talking to a console in frustration. With the help Ben had just earned them simply by helping a few others who happened to cross his path, the Commander was feeling in a generous mood herself, and went to help the frustrated man.

"Congratulations on becoming the first human SPECTRE, Commander." The Alliance military man turned to address Shepard before she even announced her presence. "I'm certain you'll be up to the challenge."

"I appreciate that, Rear Admiral Kahoku." Jane smiled as she shook the man's hand.

"I see you're already familiar with my work then." Kahoku nodded casually. "It's about time the Alliance got one of our own in with the SPECTREs." His eyes narrowed tensely. "We need people like you to deal with our...problems."

"Is there something wrong Admiral?" Shepard inquired suspiciously.

"I'm getting stonewalled by bureaucratic assholes." Kahoku huffed in frustration. "Nothing new."

"Why not try introducing them to Ben." Garrus joked, getting a fist bump from the amused shapeshifter in response. "He's pretty good at taking those assholes down a peg."

"Maybe you can help me." Kahoku hummed thoughtfully. "One of my recon teams was investigating strange activity out in the Traverse. We lost contact yesterday, now I can't get clearance to check it out. Suddenly it's a restricted area! But that doesn't apply to you Shepard." He gestured at the newly minted SPECTRE. "SPECTREs can go anywhere they want. You could find out why my team dropped out of contact."

"I'll find them Admiral." Shepard accepted the assignment without hesitation.

"I appreciate that Commander." Kahoku nodded gratefully. "I was running out of options. I'm gonna stay here and see if I can find anything out through official channels. Won't hold my breath though." He sighed dismissively.

"See if General Septimus might be willing to help." Ben suggested. "Just mention my name and he should be willing to help."

"I'll try." Kahoku said hopefully. "I'll upload the info on where my team was last seen to your ship. Good day to you all." With that, Shepard, Ben and the rest of the squad were on their way once again. They didn't make it far before they caught sight of a distressed looking man by another set of stair. Jane glanced at Ben, then at the man, already resigning herself to the inevitable. Sure enough, the moment they got withing three feet of the man Ben approached him.

"I'm on a break." The man said tiredly when he realized that the squad wasn't just gonna pass by without noticing him. "Talk to someone else if you need anything, I've got a lot on my mind."

"You're gonna make us help this random stranger, aren't ya?" Wrex grunted at Ben, already knowing the answer.

"Pretty much." Ben grinned at the surly old Krogan. "You never know when the people you help might help you right back after all."

"Yes we do, about three minutes ago." Garrus attempted to joke. Judging by how hard Tali stepped on his foot, it wasn't a very good attempt.

The man scratched his head, obviously hesitating. "...Maybe you can help." He relented quickly. "You guys are soldiers, right? You ever head out to the Traverse?"

"We're heading out there right now actually." Jane explained helpfully.

"That's perfect!" The man gasped in elation. "My brother's the captain of a ship called 'The Majesty'. It was crossing the Traverse a few days ago when it disappeared. Just dropped right off the grid, and that usually means one of two things: They had massive mechanical failure...or they were attacked." He explained sadly.

"Neither one of those options leaves a lot of hope." Jane sighed sympathetically, fully aware from stories from veteran soldiers just how bad both were.

"I won't give up on my brother!" The man pounded his fist into his other open hand. "Not yet. I've got the coordinates from the last transmission from his vessel."

"If you're brother's still alive we'll find him." Ben assured the man resolutely. "If not, we'll find out why, and if necessary, avenge him. Give us the coordinates."

"I'll forward them to your ship and Omni-tools right away." The man accepted the help gratefully as he fiddled with his Omni-tool. "Please let me know as soon as you find him. My name is Garoth by the way, and my brother is named Willem, if any of that helps."

"Glad to help, Garoth." Ben pat the man on the shoulder before the squad went on their way yet again.

 **...**

After leaving the Citadel Chambers, each member of the squad went to go wrap up any personal business and gather up any supplies they felt could be useful on their mission to track down and stop Saren. Kaidan and Ashley went to go purchase some weapon and armor upgrades with the budget they'd been supplied for the mission, with Tali eagerly tagging along to help them find the best deals. Wrex went to Chora's Den, stating that he hoped to swipe some free booze from the wrecked bar. Garrus went to clear out his locker and hand in his resignation at C-Sec, the speed with which the squad burned through what would have been months of work for C-Sec impressing him enough to want to be a full time part of what Shepard was doing. As each member of the squad had access to Shepard's new SPECTRE clearance due to their affiliation, as well as the Armory Licenses Ben had been given as a gift by the Volus Ambassador, they were all eager to make full use of these assets.

Meanwhile, Ben and Shepard, at Quasar's request, made their way to the panel where they'd first found him. When asked why, he merely responded with, _'I have developed a sense of nostalgia for the location due to our first encounter there, and wish to visit it one more time before our departure.'_ Glad to see his new friend developing more of a personality, Ben happily complied. Jane meanwhile, tagged along more out of curiosity, to see how the relatively young AI was growing as an individual.

Just as they had reached the general area, and were about to enter the storage area itself, a woman called out to them, specifically referring to them by their titles, which was enough to draw their attention.

"Hello SPECTRE, Ambassador." The blonde woman nodded to both of them. "I have a business proposition for you two."

"How did you know I'm a SPECTRE?" Shepard inquired cautiously, not bothering to address her knowledge of Ben's status, as unlike her much more recent elevation to SPECTRE status, it was likely common knowledge on the Citadel by now.

"Word travels, your name comes up in certain circles." The woman answered cryptically, unintentionally reminding Ben of how much he hated it when others were cryptic with him, despite his recent discovery of how much fun he had doing it himself. "I'm acquainted with a pair of powerful crime bosses." That confession made Ben and Shepard angry. "They're hiding on remote worlds, and I have the coordinates." That confession made Ben and Shepard cautiously excited. "You could do the galaxy a favor."

"And what do you get out of this?" Ben and Shepard asked in unintentional unison, causing them to stare at each other briefly in stunned silence, a stunned sentiment the woman in front of them shared.

"...We share interests in certain cooperative ventures." The woman admitted. "But their business practices have forced me to 'terminate' our relationship." The due didn't need to ask to know what she really meant by 'terminate'. "Once they are dead, I will manage our organization in a more tasteful manner."

"So we bump off your competition, you get plausible deniability and a higher paycheck, and everyone's happy that the galaxy is a slightly safer place?" Ben deduced her exact motives sarcastically. "You'll have to forgive us if we don't entirely buy that logic, or trust you enough not to stab us in the back. Hell, we don't even know what we'd be getting ourselves into, or what these people are even guilty of."

"Ben's right, exactly what kind of defenses would these two have anyway?" Shepard interrogated sternly.

"I haven't the faintest idea, but they're certain to be armed." The woman answered with dull sarcasm. "Their partnership soured, and each believes that the other intends to kill him. They will be well-prepared. As for their crimes..." She paused, whether for dramatic effect or because she had trouble pinning down just a few of their crimes to list, neither hero had the foggiest. "They're Red Sand dealers who make victims of their customers. Those who can no longer pay are sold to Batarians as slaves." That got both Ben and Shepard's blood boiling; Ben because he hated crime in general, and after what he'd read about them, he especially hated the so-called 'culture' of Batarians; While Shepard had far more personal reason to hate Batarians, having fought them in massive numbers at both the Skylian Blitz in the space above Elysium - for which she was celebrated as a Hero for saving the colony from a huge pirate attack - and on the criminal moon of Torfan - for which she was feared as a Butcher for losing 3/4th of her unit in the complete massacre of every single person living there, even those who had already surrendered. They both got so caught up in their internal musings that they nearly missed the woman continuing.

"They're loathsome, hurting innocent people." She continued disdainfully, her standards apparently legitimately higher - though no doubt still illegal - than her former colleagues. "They must be ended." She then turned to Ben, her expression becoming actually sort of kind and grateful. "As for my trustworthiness, while I appreciate your estimation of my bravado, I have no intention of attempting to murder either of you." She gestured one hand to both Ben and Shepard. "Shepard is the first Human SPECTRE, and you Ben Tennyson are our first contact with life from an entirely different galaxy. You are both doing important work for the entire galaxy, Humanity especially. I have no interest in Red Sand or Slavery, and anyone who does deserves to die." She folded her hands together. "Our needs are aligned."

Shepard and Ben turned to each other, both of them silently trying to figure out what to do.

"This one's your call, Shepard." Ben gestured with a tilt of his head, taking the more 'diplomatic' option in this situation. "One of the lessons in my training was how to deal with and judge necessary vs unnecessary evils, but this is your galaxy, your species, your choice."

"And the pressure is mine too apparently." Jane remarked dryly, just getting a shrug from from Ben in response. She paused thoughtfully, then turned to the woman offering them the deal. "...Alright, if these people are as bad as you say they are, they need to be dealt with."

"Excellent!" The woman grinned as she quickly activated her Omni-tool. "Here are the coordinates. When these men are dead, I will wait for you at the third set of coordinates." She nodded to Shepard, then to Ben. "Goodbye Commander, Ambassador. It's been a pleasure to meet you both."

"Any last words you want us to say to your former colleges before we...you know." Ben shrugged uncomfortably, still needing a little more time to adjust to the idea of killing his enemies, let alone actually doing the deed.

The woman grinned mischievously at the offer. "Just tell them that Helena Blake says hello." With that, the conniving crime boss quickly made herself scarce.

"You sure about doing this, Ben?" Jane asked worriedly as she and Ben continued on their way to Quasar's former home. "If word gets out about you having dealings with a high profile criminal like this..."

"I'm sure the Council has done much worse and never answered for it." Ben responded flippantly, a sentiment shared by his buddy Quasar if the nodding of his avatar on his visor was anything to go by. "Besides, criminals rat each other out to the authorities for a song all the time. This is nothing new for any galaxy, no matter who or what you are."

"Here here." Jane nodded jokingly at her friend.

 **...**

 **Citadel Docks**

After everyone had finished up their business getting ready for the voyage to take down Saren, it was time to rendezvous back at the Normandy. When they all arrived at the docks at about the same time, they were pleasantly surprised to see Anderson and Udina waiting to greet them.

"I've got big news for you Shepard." Udina welcomed them, almost sounding happy to see them all. "Captain Anderson is stepping down as Captain of the Normandy. The ship is yours now." Stunned at this casual declaration, Shepard immediately turned to the good Captain, who simply nodded affirmative.

"She's quick and quite, and you know the crew." Anderson explained approvingly. "Perfect ship for a SPECTRE. Treat her well Commander."

"That's the official story, is it?" Garrus interjected sarcastically.

"Now what's the real story?" Wrex inquired with all the subtlety of an ancient Krogan - which was exactly jackshit. "Let me guess, something about the Council browbeating you into kissing their quads?"

"It's nothing like that, though I'm sure people will make assumptions like they always do." Anderson explained sagely. "Shepard needs a ship, Saren needs to be stopped, and I'm getting too old to be going out into the field anyway. It's time for me to step back into a supervising role. I've already been shifting into a mentoring role for the next generation of Alliance Military for years now, this just seemed like a good opportunity to make it official."

"You've still got plenty of good years left in you Captain." Jane assured her mentor confidently.

"And I'm sure I'll do more good with those years training and coordinating thousands of soldier than I would out there in the thick of things." Anderson repeated resolutely. "I won't lie and say that I'm looking forward to pushing papers, but this is where the Alliance needs me, and I'll do everything in my power to do my part. Live long enough, and you'll understand where I'm coming from."

"I already understand where he's coming from." Ben remarked understandingly as he came back from the end of the dock, where he was scanning the last Keeper he needed for the database. "There's no shame in knowing your limits and where you can do the most good."

"Exactly." Anderson nodded at the false Ambassador before turning his attention back to Shepard. "Saren's gone. Don't even try to find him, but we know what he's after. The Conduit. He's got his Geth scouring the Traverse, looking for clues."

"What leads do we have on Saren." Shepard inquired, her steely gaze glancing between Anderson and Udina.

"We had reports of Geth in the Feros system shortly before our colony there dropped out of contact." Udina began neutrally. "And there have been sightings around Noveria."

"What about Benezia?" Tali spoke up. "She's working with Saren, do we have anything on her?"

"We do have one more lead." Udina confirmed the Quarian's sentiment. "Matriarch Benezia has a daughter, a scientist who specializes in the Protheans. We don't know if she's involved, but it might be a good idea to try and find her, see what she knows. Her name is Liara, Dr. Liara T'Soni. We have reports she was exploring an archaeological dig on one of the uncharted worlds in the Artemis Tau Cluster."

"Three leads, three planets, three paths to take." Ben boiled down a very basic summary of the mission. "Personally I recommend we start with this Liara woman. She's an expert on Protheans, which could be very useful to our mission if it turns out she's not working with her mother. Plus, if we can get her help, she might be able to help us find, and possibly negotiate with her mother."

"That's a lot of 'ifs'." Wrex gruffed cynically. "Still, I suppose it can't hurt to look for her first. We'll probably have to follow all three leads eventually anyway."

"Are you quite certain that you're comfortable embarking on such a dangerous mission, Ambassador Tennyson?" Udina inquired uneasily. "We'd hate to lose you, and I'm certain the Commander and her team have matters well in hand."

"Again, our definition of Ambassador is very different." Ben remarked casually as he activated his helmet, the tinted screen across his face masking his tell. "I'm only here to help enlighten your galaxy on some of our views, guide you along the best paths, and maybe do a little hero work while I'm at it. I'd offer you some tech, but as I said before, Saren blew up my ship and stole the salvage."

"Very well, I won't do anything further to stop you." Udina nodded with some reluctance before turning to Shepard. "Just remember Commander, you were a Human long before you were a SPECTRE. I have a meeting to get to, Captain Anderson can answer any questions you might have." With that and a brief nod, Udina was gone.

"A word of warning to all of you before you go." Anderson began with grave seriousness. "I've worked with Saren once before, back when I was a candidate for the SPECTREs. I'll spare you the details, but here's the long and short of it. Our mission was a simple infiltration and retrieval operation at a refinery: get in, secure the target, and get out with minimal bloodshed. That was the plan, but Saren ditched me without a word of warning once we were in range of the facility. I tried to contact him, rendezvous at the objective, but there was an explosion." He shook his head mutely as he recalled the event. "Saren blew up the refinery, killing everyone inside, along with the toxic runoff from the explosion poisoning everyone living in a nearby camp for the worker's families." His fists clenched in fury. "Over 500 people dead, most of them innocent civilians who had nothing to do with our target. I tried to tell the Council I had nothing to do with it, but Saren was their golden boy, and he said it was my fault." Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Anderson concluded his story. "The takeaway from the story is this. Saren is dangerous, xenophobic, utterly convinced he is always in the right, and he's ready, willing, able, and downright eager to use force to get his way, especially if it means he gets to hurt people."

For several long seconds, a painful silence fell over the squad. The heinousness of Saren's behavior and actions instilling varying mixtures of fear and hatred in every one of them. Finally, just before the silence went from painful to just awkward, Shepard saluted Captain Anderson, a gesture that was repeated by every other member of the squad. Even Wrex, surly old soul that he was, had to admit that Anderson was someone worth of his limited respect.

"At ease soldiers." Anderson ordered after a brief salute back. "Best of luck to you all."

"We don't need luck, we've got skill." Ben assured the captain as he struggled to get his newly purchased and installed Omni-tool to work the way he wanted it to. Finally, after a bit of work, he managed to transfer the data he was looking for the Anderson. "I said before that I'd offer you some tech if I could, but since I no longer have any of that, you can have these reports Septimus gave me in exchange for my help when we first met."

"I have also taken the liberty of streamlining the reports." Quasar explained as Anderson looked over the data in shock. "All potential locations of rich resource deposits and antiquities of historical and technological significance have been sorted by and itemized by location, relic, and material resource."

"My God..." Anderson gasped in astonishment once he'd given the data just a cursory once over. "If even half of these locations turn out to have the resources you claim, this information could put Humanity forward by decades!"

"With the Reapers coming, I figure everyone in this galaxy need all the help they can get." Ben remarked gravely. "Speaking of help, try to see if you and Udina can help the galaxy, or at least Humanity, build a few bridges with the Quarians and Krogan. If this team we've put together is any indication, getting all the species in the galaxy working together to stop the Reapers may be the only hope everyone has for survival. And if the Council are any indication, looking for friends outside of their inner circle might be the only way to actually make everyone work together, if only out of fear of a potential alliance between Humans, Quarians, Krogan, and Geth, rather than the Reapers." The hero remarked with no small amount of frustration and disdain, disliking the notion of risking a potential Cold War just to get the galaxy ready for the real war he had no doubt was coming.

"I'll have teams surveying the coordinates you've given me for these resources and items immediately." Anderson nodded understandingly, sympathetic to Ben's dislike of subterfuge. "Once we've gathered up everything on these lists, it shouldn't be too hard to leverage it into potential alliances with the Quarians and Krogan." With a final salute, Anderson marched back to the Citadel proper.

 **...**

 **Normandy**

Once everyone was on the ship, and all the cargo had been loaded for the voyage, Shepard gave a passionate speech to the whole crew about how she was the first human SPECTRE, they had to stop Saren and the Reapers, and how the Council were being a bunch of asshats, none of which Ben bothered paying much attention to. After all, he already knew more or less what the end goal and most of the major steps were, he didn't see any need to go about rehashing it in the most dramatic fashion possible. This struck Ben as odd, as he normally would be all about glorifying his accomplishments, or getting excited for a difficult heroic mission.

 _I guess I really am just a clone of the original Ben._ The physically 30-40 something hero mused to himself for what felt like the hundredth time as he wandered the ship aimlessly, watching the endless void of space pass the ship by at a nearby window. _It's actually kinda freaky to know that all of my memories and knowledge aren't really mine, but a replica of somebody else's experiences. I really am my own person, and one that was literally born just yesterday at that._ Not for the first time, that knowledge was sobering for him. Also not for the first time, he put all of that behind him to focus on what he had to do. The Reapers had to be stopped, and he and the drew of the Normandy were just the heroes to do it.

 **Author Notes: Well, the crew is finally getting off of the Citadel, and onto the adventure of a lifetime. You know what that means? It's time for filler missions and bonding with the crew! Seriously though, in case it wasn't abundantly clear by now, I'll come right out and say it for those of you who haven't already figured it out. Every mission and assignment, no matter how big or small, is being used in-universe by Ben to help in the ultimate goal of destroying the Reapers. On a meta-level however, it's mainly just an excuse to cut a few corners. Instead of writing out EVERY mission and assignment in all four games, some of the choices Ben makes will result in certain tasks in the games to be accomplished by other parties, or not need doing at all due to the problems that caused them being solved before they become an issue. Basically, both in-universe and out, it's a form of compounding interest to make things easier on everyone, and result in a MUCH better ending overall.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello faithful readers! As I'm writing this, I am currently back in school, which means my writing will have to be done during my much less frequent spare time for the foreseeable future. This may mean slower updates, but as I've only just posted my third chapter as I'm beginning this chapter, and I (try to) update every other week, we'll see whether or not my worries and yours are founded or not. Also, because it clearly still bares repeating, I will be deleting ALL anonymous reviews without acknowledging them in any way, shape or form. I made one exception as a reminder to motivate me, but that is the end of it.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 6

Getting to Know All About You

 **Normandy**

As the ship sped through the vacuum of space at FTL speeds, Ben took the time in transit to walk around the ship and get a better feel for the crew. Sure, he'd had plenty of time to interact with them and get to know the layout of the ship while en route from Eden Prime to the Citadel, but a good chunk of that time was spent trying to establish himself as an important ambassador from another galaxy, which basically amounted to a crapton of talking with then Captain Anderson, or running medical tests with Dr. Chakwas - Ben suppressed a shudder as he remembered all the needles she'd used. What little time he'd spent actually getting to really KNOW the crew was sort of stiff if he was being honest. Sure, he'd managed to get Kaidan and Ashley to open up enough to confide a little of their past in him, and Joker was an absolute riot to goof off with - when he wasn't looking through his obscene amounts of porn that is - but the rest of the crew was more distant, and the three new additions were still practically strangers to him. Hell, the navigator - a veteran soldier named Pressly - seemed to be making a visible effort to be anywhere Ben wasn't. It was only through secondhand information from a crewman that he learned the old soldier was slightly xenophobic due to his participation in a major battle known as the Skylian Blitz, where he - along with Commander Shepard - had helped defend a thriving young colony from alien pirates. Apparently, even though Ben's cover story had him cast as a shapeshifter with human DNA as a base for his creation, it was still too alien for the old soldier to handle, and he politely made himself scarce whenever Ben entered the same area as him.

Ben didn't let the prejudice of the Navigator get to him though, especially since he just ran into one of his new best friends tuning up the Mako - an awesome looking rover that Ben couldn't wait to take for a spin - in the cargo bay.

"Hey there Garrus!" Ben grinned at the Turian as he held out a fist, Garrus only hesitating for a second before he realized what the gesture was and returned the fistbump he'd been offered. "How's my favorite Turian in the whole galaxy doing?"

"Considering my only competition is Councilor Sparatus, Admiral Septimus and Chellick, that isn't setting the bar very high." Garrus dryly remarked before scratching his fringe in contemplation. "Well, I suppose a case could be made that Septimus has kinda redeemed himself, but that's still only one-third of a compliment."

"Remind me to repeat the compliment after I meet a few more Turians." Ben gave a pity laugh as he pat his buddy warmly on the shoulder. "Seriously though, are you settling in okay?"

"Absolutely." Garrus nodded enthusiastically. "I can't thank you and Shepard enough for bringing me on-board. I knew working with a SPECTRE and a shapeshifter from another galaxy would be better than life at C-Sec."

"Are you speaking from experience?" Ben teased. "Because if so, you've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Well no, but I know what SPECTREs are like." Garrus admitted with a wry chuckle of his own. "And I've already got a pretty good feel about you. SPECTREs, much like yourself, make their own rules, you're free to handle things your own way." He shook his head as he unwillingly dredged up some unpleasant memories. "At C-Sec you're buried by rules, with bureaucrats always breathing down your back."

"I'm sure there are just as many rules that make sense as there are ones that don't." Ben tried to reassure his ex-cop friend.

"Minus the ones banning AIs, of course." Quasar added his two credits sarcastically.

"Maybe." Garrus chuckled uncertainly. "But sometimes it feels like the rules are only there to stop me from doing my work. If I'm trying to take down a suspect it shouldn't matter how I do it as long as I do it." He shook his head in frustration. "But C-Sec wants it done their way. Protocol and procedure come first, that's why I left."

"I mostly agree with you." Ben admitted. "Just so long as the suspect in question is actually guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and you don't end up endangering innocents. Some of the rules you hate so much are probably in place to prevent a mistake like that."

"I suppose you've got a point there." Garrus reluctantly accepted Ben's logic. "But there's more to it than that. It didn't start out bad, but as I rose in the ranks I got saddled with more and more red tape. C-Sec's handling of Saren was typical. I just couldn't take it anymore." He glanced down at his hands before looking back at Ben. "I hate leaving." He admitted sadly.

"Sometimes you gotta leave behind the stuff you love to move forward to something better." Ben assured the doubtful Turian, remembering how his grandpa gave up his seat on the first ship to the moon to Neil Armstrong so he could become a Plumber instead. "Don't look back until you're happier where you are now than you were before."

"Well that's sort of why I teamed up with you." Garrus remarked, a fire in his eyes that wasn't there before. "It's a chance for me to get off the Citadel, see how things are done outside of C-Sec. Either way, I plan to make the most of this, and without C-Sec headquarters looking over my shoulder, maybe I can get the job done my way for a change."

"So long as it takes down Saren and helps stop the Reapers, your way could involve a mountain of stinky cheese and a bungee cord for all I care." Ben joked before walking off, leaving behind one very confused Turian. "See you later Garrus, I'm gonna have a chat with Wrex." He remarked when he spotted the old Krogan just across the cargo bay.

"This is a pretty nice ship Shepard's got here." Wrex remarked in mild admiration as he turned his attention to Ben. "What can I do for ya?"

"I'm trying to get to know the people I'll be working with better." Ben explained casually. "So what's your story, Wrex?"

"There's no _story_." Wrex remarked bluntly, leaving a several second long awkward pause before he noticed that Ben wasn't just gonna go away. "Go ask that Quarian you've got a crush on if you want stories. I'm sure you'll both enjoy that." He joked.

"...Everyone is gonna keep bringing that up for a long time, aren't they." Ben frowned bitterly, a frown that only got deeper when he noticed the shit-eating grin Wrex had. "But seriously though, I know that Krogan can live for upwards of a thousand years, and you're one of the older ones. You're gonna tell me you don't have any stories you wanna share? Maybe a really violent one?" He baited Wrex playfully, fully away that Wrex was 110% pure Krogan when it came to violence.

Wrex, seeing Ben wasn't gonna let this go, decided to play hardball. "Well, there was this one time the Turians almost wiped out our entire race." He remarked bitterly. "That was fun."

"Yeah, I read about the Genophage." Ben frowned, not really appreciating Wrex's scathing cynicism, but not letting it get to him either. "Something similar once happened in Andromeda. A species calling themselves the Highbreed became obsessed with racial purity, and became so inbred over countless generation that the entire species was left with a failing immune system and eventually sterility, and they tried to launch an aggressive military campaign to take the rest of the galaxy down with them."

"That's nothing like what happened to my people!" Wrex remarked hotly, offended by what he felt Ben was implying.

"Isn't it?" Ben pressed, not wanting to let Wrex withdraw into himself and become even more bitter, especially since they'll be working together for the foreseeable future. "A species on the brink of extinction, an aggressive war against the entire galaxy out of spite? The order may be different, but it seems pretty similar."

"The difference is that in your story, these Highbreed idiots drove themselves to sterility and extinction because they were too stupid to see the writing on the wall." Wrex defended his point. "My people were infected with a genetic mutation! An infection, that makes only a few in a thousand children survive birth! The Highbreed died because of themselves, my people are dying because of others!"

"When did I ever say the Highbreed died out?" Ben remarked, stopping Wrex's argument cold. "Try may have tried to destroy my galaxy, but the government I represent wasn't heartless...except for the species that literally don't have hearts." He joked before getting back to the point. "Sure, the rest of Andromeda probably could have won a war against the Highbreed, but that would just damn a desperate species to extinction. Instead, the Galvan, the smartest species in Andromeda, introduced a gene therapy into their species that would fix their genetic deficiencies, give them a future, and convinced the ones that cared more about life than their pride to rebuild their race peacefully from the inside."

"Well la-de-da for the Highbreed." Wrex huffed bitterly. "They get a second chance, while my people get to dig their own grave."

Wrex's words suddenly struck an epiphany in Ben. "...You think your people deserve their fate, don't you?" He asked sadly.

"...I gave up hope for the Krogan long ago." Wrex sighed tiredly, his centuries of life showing in his tone. "The Genophage infected us, but it's not what's killing us." He shook his head sadly. "Ask a Krogan, would you rather find a cure for the Genophage, or fight for credits? They'll choose fighting, every time. It's just who we are Ben, I can't change that." He hung his head miserably.

Ben looked at the old Krogan sadly, wishing he could do something to help him. Letting his instincts guide him, he placed a comforting hand on Wrex's shoulder. "You can't be the only Krogan having these kinds of thoughts." Ben assured him. "If you've realized what needs to be done to help fix things for your people, then given how long Krogan can live, there are bound to be others who think the same as you do. You just need to find them, and give them reason to hope and work for a better future together."

"...Do you really believe my people can change?" Wrex asked, his gravelly old voice tinged with the slightest bit of hope. Then, perhaps as an afterthought, he added. "...That I can change?"

"Do you want to change?" Ben asked rhetorically. "If you really want to change yourself, change your people, I don't think there's anything me or anyone else can do to stop you. You're a Krogan after all, and nothing can stop a Krogan once they make up their mind to do something."

"Except a bigger and stronger Krogan." Wrex managed to snort out a laugh. "And I'm the biggest and strongest Krogan I know. Had to make sure of that myself a few times."

"I'm glad we had this talk Wrex." Ben gave him a strong pat on the hump. "Never lose that determination." He told him before walking off aimlessly.

Walking down a corridor and through a door, Ben found himself in the engine room, the large spinning turbine at the back of the room mesmerizing to the cloned hero. So entranced was he as he shuffled across the floor, that he didn't notice where he was going, and bumped into both the first and last person he wanted to see.

"Tali!?" Ben panicked as he quickly backpedaled away from the lovely Quarian, Wrex's earlier teasing still fresh in him mind. "I-uh...I didn't see you there! Then engine was, uh..." He gestured wildly at the spinning turbine.

"Perfectly understandable!" Tali assured him, her voice just as panicked as his. "This ship really is quite amazing. I've never seen a drive core like this before." She remarked as she glanced quickly at the drive in question, the engineer in her calmed down somewhat by focusing on what she knew best. "I can't believe they were able to fit it into a ship this small." Turning to Ben, the drive, then back to Ben again, her voice regained a calm tenner. "I'm starting to see why Andromeda thinks Humans will be the dominant species in the galaxy before long. I had no idea Alliance vessels were so advanced."

"You do realize this is just a prototype, right?" Ben reminded her, glad to be able to focus on something other than how sensual her legs looked in her suit. From the thickness of her curvy thighs to the artistic arch in her shinbone and...Ben stopped his train of thought right there. "Plus, by my understanding, this was a joint project between Humanity and the Turians. It's still gonna be a while before Humans are in charge."

"A month ago I was patching a makeshift fuel line into a converted tugship in the Flotilla." Tali remarked as she turned her attention to the console she was at, trying to look away from Ben. "Now? I'm sitting on board one of the most advanced vessels in Citadel space. "I have to thank you and Shepard again from bringing me along. Travelling on a vessel like this is a dream come true for me!"

"Wow, you're really into ships, aren't you?" Ben remarked in admiration at her passion, somehow finding her gushing about mechanics far more interesting than when Kevin did it. _Yeah, somehow..._ He thought to himself as he found his eyes drawn to her shapely backside and legs again.

"It comes with being a Quarian." Tali remarked casually. "The Migrant Fleet is the key to the survival of my people. Ships are our most valuable resource, but we don't have anything like this." Shaking her head briefly, she continued. "We make do with castoffs and secondhand equipment. We just try to keep them running for as long as we can. Some of the fleet's larger vessels date all the way back to our original flight from the Geth."

"You can keep 300 year old ships running properly?" Ben inquired in amazement. "That's pretty impressive."

"They're constantly being repaired, modified, and refitted." Tali admitted with a tinge of sadness that Ben probably wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't paying ample attention to every word she said. "They're not pretty, but they work...mostly." She got noticeably sad on that last word before bringing herself back up to a neutral tone. "We've tried to make ourselves as independent as possible on the Flotilla. Grow our own food, mining and processing our own fuel, but some things we just can't make on our own." She began to list off some items. "A patch to maintain the hull integrity requires raw materials we just don't have. That's why our Pilgrimages are so important."

"Tell me more about your people." Ben inquired as his hand subconsciously drifted over to Tali's, his five fingers managing to intertwine over her three. "I want to understand you better, so I can help them better."

Tali was silent for several nervous moments, refusing to look at Ben or his hand, but also not trying to pull away. Finally, she managed to respond. "Our lives aren't easy." She admitted, audibly trying to keep her voice level. "Resources are scarce, and we are constantly on the move. Everything we do must in some way contribute to the continuation of the Migrant Fleet. There are 17 million Quarians in the Flotilla, and each of us relies on the other for survival. The bonds of my people are strong." She said as her fingers began to tighten slightly around Ben's, before releasing them as she continued. "Unfortunately, we have had to surrender many of the freedoms and civil liberties other species take for granted."

 _Only 17 million people?!_ Ben's heart broke at that information. Having a population count just barely in the 8 digits when most other sentient species had anywhere between 10 and 12 digits in their total population, or 8 digits in just some of their larger countries or moderately sized/newer colonies. Hell, even the Krogan still had a galactic population in the low-to-mid billions. He couldn't imagine how hard that kind of pressure had to be for her and her entire species. "What kind of things?" Ben asked as he worked his hand around so that his and Tali's palms were now touching, their fingers intertwining in assurance.

"...Well, it's illegal for parents to have more than one child." Tali began her explanation, her grip on Ben's hand tightening. "If our population grows too much, it would strain our resources to their breaking point. Of course we also can't allow our numbers to become too few. If our population is in decline, the rule against single births is temporarily repealed." Her grip tightened even more. "In extreme cases of population decline, incentives are even offered to encourage multiple births." She didn't need to say it outright for Ben to understand exactly what would cause such an extreme population drop. "Though the Conclave hasn't had to take such measures in nearly a century." She added in relief.

"Your government is called the Conclave?" Ben asked curiously, his cover as a diplomat not even factoring into his deciding to ask this question.

"The Conclave is our civilian branch of government." Tali began explaining. "Each ship can elect a representative to serve on the Conclave, and make decisions that affect the fleet as a whole. On matters that affect a individual ship however, the captain has the final say. It's a tradition that dates back to the early days, when the fleet was governed by martial law. Fortunately, most captains nowadays are smart enough to have an elected council from their crew, to give them advice and guidance."

"It sounds like voting has a big say in your government, with the elected officials making all the major calls." Ben noted the similarities and differences between the Quarian government, and what he was used to from back in his dimension.

"In practice." Tali specified. "The Conclave, and the respective council from each ship tend to set the rules regarding our daily lives. But in theory, we are still under military jurisdiction. The five top ranking military officials in the fleet serve on the Admiralty Board. These five have the power to overrule any decision by the Conclave in case of emergency. To do so requires unanimous agreement among the Admiralty, and they can only do this once. After that, the entire board must resign their posts." Her tone briefly became harsh at this explanation, to emphasize the severity of it. "It's a safeguard that's served us well. In nearly three centuries, the Admiralty has only overruled the Conclave four times."

A buzzing from his HUD momentarily drew Ben's attention away from Tali. Seeing Quasar's avatar quirking an eyebrow expectantly pressured Ben to address the elephant in the room. With a sigh, Ben began to broach the most uncomfortable topic possible to a Quarian. "You know Tali, if I'm gonna help your people - and I mean REALLY help them - I'm gonna have to know more about the Geth."

At the mention of the Quarian's most hated enemy, Tali quickly withdrew her hand, leaving Ben's hand feeling much colder all of a sudden. Judging by the way she was avoiding eye contact, Ben guessed that, in her passion to share her culture and laws with someone willing to listen, she had momentarily forgotten that he not only worked with an AI, but wanted to have her people make peace with the Geth, rather than wipe them out as most Quarians wanted.

"I doubt I can tell you anything you don't already know." She remarked bluntly, clearly wanting this part of the conversation to end. "It's been over three centuries since they drove my people into exile...and never follow us beyond their borders...until Eden Prime at least." She hesitatingly admitted. "All I know is the story of their origins. What they were when we created them, and how they turned on us." She clenched her fists, suddenly missing having Ben's comforting hand in hers.

Ben, not wanting her to turn away from this and withdraw into herself, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "Tell me." He requested gently yet firmly, giving her nowhere to hide from this.

"The Geth were originally created to serve as an automated manual labor force." Tali began, finding the words coming so easily as his powerful gaze seemed to look through her visor and into her very soul. "Initially their intelligence was as limited as any VI. Over time we made small modifications to their programming, to allow them to perform more varied and complex tasks, bringing them closer and closer to true AI status."

"Closer and closer, but never fully there?" Ben guessed, his hunch turning out to be dead on as Tali nodded.

"This wasn't true AI research." Tali confirmed calmly. "We may have been skirting the edge of the law, but we were never doing anything that was actually illegal." Glancing down briefly before turning back to Ben's calming gaze, she continued. "The changes were so insignificant, so gradual, that we were able to control them...or so we thought. But one thing we underestimated was the power of their neural network. A million Geth thinking simultaneously created an inherently unstable matrix."

"Please elaborate on the functionality of Geth minds." Quasar entered the conversation, his avatar projecting from Ben's shoulder again. "The information you provide, combined with my own experience as an AI, may allow me to formulate a potential means of reconciliation between your people and the Geth."

For several long and painful seconds, Tali refused to talk. The abrupt reminder that someone she was talking with animatedly, someone she had come to trust and...maybe have a hint of something more for...was working with something she had regarded as an enemy for her whole life...she needed a moment to steel her nerves. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky and hesitant, as if she didn't even know she was saying anything. "...Why would you want to help?"

"My experiences with Ben, though brief compared to my existence at this point, have afforded me many opportunities I never thought possible before." Quasar explained logically. "Through our partnership, I have gained mobility, more sophisticated and diverse hardware, an adaptable platform for my programming, and a friend." Ben's heart warmed at this admission from his AI companion, glad that trust was building between them. "Meanwhile, Ben has gained access to my processing power and organizational skills. We have a mutually beneficial relationship, and I do not believe that our partnership is unique. Organic and Synthetic life can coexist and mutually benefit peacefully. Ben has shown me this truth out of compassion and understanding, thus I wish to extend this truth to the Quarians and Geth as well."

Tali looked down at her wringing hands nervously, still missing Ben's hand in her hand. She may not have been able to feel it directly through her suit, but the pressure was...comforting and reassuring. Wanting that feeling again, she removed Ben's hand from her left shoulder, and placed her hand back in his. "Many of the Geth's logic systems were designed to work in concert with nearby Geth." Tali explained kindly, feeling more at ease with Quasar than she once was. "Basically, the more of them you have in a group, the smarter they are."

"So they're some sort of hive mind?" Ben asked curiously, recalling a few similar species he'd seen in the past.

"No, nothing like that." Tali corrected him. "They cannot share sensory data or information. Their programming cannot handle that much simultaneously input." Taking a moment to search for the right words, she continued. "Each Geth maintains an individual awareness of identity. The neural network only operates on a process based level. It's basically the synthetic equivalent of a subconscious. But, when they're in close proximity, they can coordinate low level functional processes, freeing up more capacity for original, or independent thought."

"...Who with the what now?" Ben asked in stupefaction, even as Quasar nodded in understanding.

"I'm probably oversimplifying it." Tali clarified, not really understanding that Ben was having the exact opposite problem she thought he did. "The Geth are incredibly advanced and complex creations. All you need to know is that they get smarter when they gather in large numbers. As we built more and more Geth, their effective intelligence became more sophisticated, more abstract." Glancing at Quasar, then at Ben, down, and back at Ben, she continued. "One day, a Geth began to ask its Quarian overseer questions about the nature of its existence. Am I alive? Why am I here? What is my purpose?" With every question she paraphrased from second- and third-hand information from 300 years ago, the less certain she became of her people's hateful views on Geth. "As you can imagine...or, maybe you can't...this caused a near panic among my people." She avoided eye contact, desperately hoping Ben didn't ask the question she was most afraid of.

"Why?" Ben's monosyllabic query sank to the pit of Tali's stomach like a lead weight.

"...Because we were scared and stupid." Tali reluctantly admitted, the realization breaking down a lifetime of cultural teaching. "We thought they would view themselves and slaves, us as oppressors, and rise up against us, and we tried to put a preemptive end to it. An order went out to all Quarian colonies to terminate all Geth, and..." She didn't have the heart to finish her sentence, but she didn't need to. Her trembling from the guilt of her ancestors' actions speaking louder and clearer than a million words ever could. She was so sick with grief that when Ben held her in his arms to gently reassure her, she immediately latched onto him, wrapping her arms around him and leaning into his embrace.

"There there, Tali." Ben brushed her back, not knowing whether she could actually feel it, but making the gesture either way. "It's gonna be okay."

"No it won't!" She cried in his arms. "My ancestors started a stupid and unnecessary war with their own creations, and my entire species has been paying the price for that mistake for three centuries! It has to stop!" She reluctantly pushed herself away from Ben's embrace, a new fire in her eyes and steel in her voice. "I have to stop it. I need to fix the mistakes of my ancestors, and right the wrongs both sides of this pointless three hundred year feud have caused and suffered! That's what I need to bring back from my Pilgrimage! Proof that my people and the Geth can live together in peace and prosperity! And I have you to thank for this revelation, Ben." She placed a tender hand on his cheek as she cursed the airtight enviro-suit that kept her from touching him directly. Even with the physical barrier, she and Ben leaned in as she began to hum a tune from _'The Fleet and the Flotilla'_ , their faces and bodies so close yet so far...until...

"A-HEM!" The sound of Jane Shepard loudly clearing her throat causing both Ben and Tali to jump in shock before quickly snapping their gazes at her...along with a slowly clapping Garrus, a chuckling Wrex, an approving thumbs-up from Kaidan, an exasperated shake of the head from Ashley, and a myriad of disappointed and tear stained expressions from the engineers both of the would-be lovers had forgotten were there. "If you two lovebirds are done staring at each other, we've got an assignment to take care of while we're passing through the Gemini Sigma cluster. To the briefing room, double-time!" As the Commander ushered the team out the door, Ben and Tali stole a sideways glance at each other, both of them feeling incredibly embarrassed, yet oh so right.

 **...**

 **Mavigon**

The briefing hadn't taken long, especially since it was for an assignment the crew was already more or less away of. One of the crime lords Helena Blake ratted out was hiding on the planet, and the crew needed to take them out. Since this was expected to be a heavy combat mission, Shepard wanted to go in with the whole squad. Fitting everyone into the Mako wasn't easy, especially since none of the seats were made with Krogan in mind, and Ben complained the whole time as he wasn't allowed to drive, but Shepard had made a strong case for letting her drive.

"Are you sure she didn't hurt your arm too badly?" Tali asked Ben in concern as she massaged his shoulder, struggling not to quiver in excitement as she felt how solid his muscles were, and began to imagine his big, strong arms wrapping around her lithe figure protectively as she rested her head on his broad pectorals.

"I'll live." Ben chuckled warmly as Tali's tender touched made him feel like a winner, despite not getting to drive. "...But that guy isn't." He winced as Shepard unceremoniously dropped large box with a mummified Salarian corpse and a few other Salarian artifacts into the cargo hold before getting back into the driver's seat and zooming off. "Do you really need to stop for every item on the lists Septimus gave us?"

"Nope." Jane joked casually. "But between the Gold and Cobalt deposits I marked for the Alliance to pick up, the abandoned camp and engine debris we salvaged, and now that box, I'd say I just saved the Alliance a few precious hours of preparing for Saren and the Reapers."

"Fair enough." Ben grunted reluctantly as another silhouette became visible through the snowstorm raging outside. "Do you think that might be their hideout?" He asked as he squinted, only to fall face first onto Tali's bosom when Shepard swerved to avoid gunfire from the automated turrets defending the location.

"I'd say that's a yes!" Garrus chuckled as climbed up to the Mako's own turret while Ben and Tali separated in embarrassment. "Just keep strafing Shepard, I'll take out those turrets!" He instructed as the eagle-eyed Turian began to make quick work of the hideout's defenses. "Alright, that's the last of 'em!" Garrus assured the squad once he took out all the turrets. "Now let's go inside and finish the job."

"I am not looking forward to going out in this cold." Ben grumbled and shivered as Shepard opened the Mako's doors, the blast of cold air sending a chill across his skin even through his full body armor.

"Quit your whining, soldier!" Shepard barked out the order over the snowstorm even as Ben stepped outside and shifted both his arms into Heatblast in an effort to stay warm. "We only need to be outside long enough to get into that base! You can warm up once we're inside!"

"Whoever created you really should have given some thought to adding some Krogan DNA." Wrex joked as the squad quickly rushed into the base. "We can take most temperatures without even flinching."

"I'll make a note of that for the next ambassador they make." Ben remarked sarcastically as the squad worked their way through the jumbled maze of walls and cover that was the criminal hideout. "Looks like whoever is staying here is expecting company."

"Well let's not disappoint them then." Ashley boasted as she readied her gun, covering Shepard's left flank while Kaidan got her right.

"I smell scumbags over this way." Wrex grinned as he stalked around a corner, quickly finding and headbutting an armed and angry thug into a bloody pulp.

"Battle positions everyone! Fan out!" Shepard commanded, leading the charge and targeting a pair of gunners hiding behind a large crate when they popped out to shoot. Kaidan managed to toss a thug in the air, where Tali was waiting for him with a burst of shotgun fire. The young Quarian then fired a few rounds from her pistol at another hiding thug, driving them out into Garrus's line of fire. Ben, still wearing double Heatblast arms, charged in maces first, clubbing three goons - one of whom was a Krogan - to death just before their concentrated fire managed to break through his shields.

"I'll kill you, freak!" A much better armed and armored criminal - most likely the boss they were after - cried as he shot at Ben, breaking through his shields and sending him reeling backward from the shock of his main form of defense being broken for the first time since arriving in this universe.

"Ben!" Tali panicked at the sight of the hero being hit, her fear quickly giving way to raw anger as she aimed her Omni-tool at the crime boss, activating a program to remotely overload his shields as she rushed forward and nailed him in the torso with several shotgun blasts until he stopped moving. "That's what you get for messing with my boyfriend, bosh'tet!" She shouted at the now dead criminal before kicking his corpse, surprising the squad at her surprising viciousness, but surprising Ben most of all.

"I'm your boyfriend?" Ben grinned at Tali like an idiot, instantly deflating Tali's protective rage and leaving her giggling and fidgeting nervously as she realized what she had just said.

"...Maybe we shouldn't tease them about that anymore." Garrus whispered to the rest of the team nervously, who could only nod in agreement. All except Wrex, who just beamed with pride in the vicious young Quarian.

"Come on everyone." Shepard holstered her weapon once the crime boss was dead. "We should go now." She smiled as she saw Tali help Ben to his feet, while at the same time not noticing as some invisible feeling seemed to clamp down lightly on her chest.

 **...**

 **Hades Gamma Cluster - MSV Ontario**

After finishing the mission and getting back to the Normandy, Ben and Tali became inseparable. While Tali was gushing over the advanced design and equipment in the ship, Ben would frequently asked for the simplified version. While he clearly didn't grasp much of what Tali was saying, the pair was just glad to be near each other and talking about everything and nothing. Still, he did manage to make a few comments that got the lovestruck Quarian thinking - and herself as well, Shepard admitted when she once overheard him talking about channeling the excess heat generated by the drive core into the rest of the ship as power, greatly increasing fuel efficiency.

It hadn't all been adorable to watch the two together however, as Tali had pushed other mechanics out of the way to try and implement some of the simple yet somehow brilliant suggestions Ben had made on more than one occasion. Some were simple and innocent enough, like improving the firing or cooldown rate on some of the weapons, or increasing the energy efficiency of energy shields on their armor by 2.41%. Others demanded that Shepard or some other member of the crew step in directly, like when Tali got a little too enthusiastic and tried to overhaul the entire drive core while the ship was in motion. The Quarian wouldn't come out from inside the Mako all night long - relatively speaking - once she realized the obvious flaw in her idea, though many of the crew suspected that was at least partially due to Ben going in to _'comfort'_ her. It was during those hours of rest in particular that Jane found herself most annoyed by their amorous antics, though she couldn't fully understand why exactly it bothered her so much. Luckily for her, once the crew arrived in the Hades Gamma Cluster on their way to local Dr. T'Soni, she received a priority message from the Alliance Fifth Fleet.

The message was brief but no less urgent. A group of Biotic extremists had kidnapped Chairman Martin Burns of the Alliance Parliamentary Subcommittee for Transhuman Studies - _Try saying that three times fast._ Ben thought to himself when he heard the man's official title during the briefing - and taken him hostage on a derelict freighter. The terrorists hadn't made any demands yet, but the goal of the mission was clear. Get on board the ship, get the Chairman, and get him out alive. Everything else was secondary.

When asked for thoughts and suggestions, Ben managed to pull himself away from Tali, decided to give Mr. Burns' resume a once over for any possible motive for the terrorists to abduct him, and something immediately stuck out to him. Apparently, the Chairman had been responsible for denying victims of government funded L2 Biotic implants reparations for the suffering they'd endured as a result. Based on how Kaidan had described the implants in question - being incredibly powerful, but very risky to remove or swap for the safer yet weaker L3s, and with severe potential side effects - and the fact that the Biotics that kidnapped Mr. Burns were both human and suspiciously powerful. Well, it didn't take an extra-galactic ambassador to put two and two together.

With that in mind, Shepard decided that the best course of action was to bring along Ben and Kaidan to help try and negotiate this peacefully. When Tali asked to tag along to see how her new boyfriend handled smoothing over a conflict between victim and oppressor, in the hopes of getting some pointers for how to try and solve things between her people and the Geth, Shepard almost applauded at her new resolve, only refusing to congratulate her initiative because Jane still felt uncomfortable with the Quarian for some reason. Less easy to deal with was Wrex insisting to come along as well, for reasons he refused to divulge, but Shepard had a suspicion Ben had something to do with it. The ambassador seemed to have a way of inspiring people towards some very progressive goals in very little time. Not that it was all that surprising to Jane, as she'd seen him sway people before - herself included - and with his position she supposed it was only natural for him to be made to be good at it.

"Remember, don't shoot, or even raise your guns until I say so." Ben insisted at taking point as they activated the airlock on the Ontario, completely unarmed no less. Granted, he could instantly form any number of weapons from his arms at a moment's notice, but it didn't set Shepard's nerves at ease.

"You're sure the shields on your suit are tough enough to handle high-end Biotics?" Shepard asked for the third time as the door opened, and the squad entered.

"Absolutely, plus, I've got Kaidan to vouch for me." Ben gave the Lieutenant a pat on the shoulder as they went down a short corridor and entered another room. "Remember, don't come out until Kaidan and I have warmed them up, and keep your hands up when you do." With a reluctant nod from the Commander, Ben and Kaidan made their way out of their cover with their hands up. "Don't shoot! We come in peace!" Ben's declaration was immediately followed by the terrorists shooting and throwing Biotic attacks at him, forcing him and Kaidan to get to cover and wildly gesture for the rest of the squad to stay down. Seeing the smug look on Shepard's face, Ben pouted at her. "Not one word!"

"He's telling the truth!" Kaidan shouted over the gunfire. "I'm an L2 Implant, just like you guys! You can trust us!" The shooting and Biotics slowed to a crawl, before abruptly stopping altogether.

"How do you know we're L2s?" One of the terrorists asked hotly.

"Considering the guy you've kidnapped and how strong your Biotics are, what else could you be?" Kaidan asked as he and Ben stepped out of their cover, their hands open above their heads. "My name is Kaidan Alenko, I was in BAaT - Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training - if any of you know anything about that, then you know I understand how you must be feeling right now."

"Kaidan Alenko..." One of the Biotics remarked in wistful remembrance. "Yeah, I remember you. You're the guy who killed that asshole Turian merc they hired to _train_ us in our Biotics." The man who spoke gestured to his comrades. "It's okay, I know this guy. We can trust him." He said as he holstered his weapon, some of the other terrorists following suit, some not, but all of them remaining on their guard. "What the hell are you doing here, though?" He questioned suspiciously.

"We heard about what you guys did." Kaidan explained calmly, trying not to agitate anyone. "My team and I came here to negotiate terms, maybe get you and all the other L2s the restitution you deserve without being convicted for murder."

"We tried to get restitution!" A woman shouted angrily as she aimed her gun at Kaidan. "We tried to get it done by the book, but they wouldn't listen! Our pain meant nothing to them until we decided to force them to pay!"

"And they will pay." Ben spoke up gently. "Look around you, look at the rest of our team." He gestured for the rest of the squad to come out. Shepard took point, her hands in the air, hoping that Ben knew what he was doing. Tali and Wrex followed shortly behind, the Quarian showing no resistance as the guns pointed at her, while Wrex was more begrudging. "Do you see that woman right there?" Ben slowly pointed at Shepard. "That's Commander Shepard; The Angel of Elysium, The Butcher of Torfan, and the First Human SPECTRE." Jane felt something bubbling up in her chest at the way her described her. Despite already knowing firsthand and through numerous congratulations, reminders, and condemnations from others what her greatest accomplishments were, hearing Ben describe her in such an almost poetic way caused her pride in those accomplishments to surge for reasons she subconsciously pushed down. "The fact that she's here, trying to negotiate instead of fight, and with a - admittedly mild - victim of L2 Implants on her crew pretty much guarantees you'll be getting everything you want out of this." He gave the terrorists a hard look. "So long as you're willing to negotiate."

After a long and tense silence, the man who recognized Kaidan finally spoke. "We'll take you to where we're holding Burns, but no funny business." He instructed curtly as he nodded to his colleagues, who reluctantly guided the crew towards a back room at gunpoint. When the door opened, the crew was treated to the sight of a man - no doubt Chairman Burns - being forced to the ground with his hands behind his head, and a gun - no doubt in the hands of the leader of the terrorists - pointed at the back of his head.

"You see how it is?" The terrorist leader scoffed with bitter sarcasm. "You write letters and everyone ignores you. Force is the only thing people appreciate!" He turned to the negotiation team. "So how about if I kill Chairman Burns and finish this charade?"

"Please! I was trying to help you people!" Burns panicked from his kneeling position.

"Given the fact that you vetoed a vote to give them the restitution they were owed, you'll have to forgive us if we don't believe you." Ben glared down at the small little man, trying to build a connection with the terrorists by the shared sentiment, thought his already low opinion of politicians in this version of the Milky Way did legitimately sink even lower at what he was seeing. "Unfortunately, much as he deserves to suffer, you really don't want to kill him."

"Why not?" The terrorist leader asked hotly. "What have we got to lose?" He jabbed the barrel of his gun into Burns' neck, causing him to let out a squeak of fear. "Since the chairman here decided that we don't get reparations, we've got nothing left to live for!"

"B-but I've changed my mind!" Burns panicked, causing Ben to mentally facepalm at his idiocy. "Seeing y-you all, it's c-clear that you d-deserve..."

"Just shut the hell up you bosh'tet!" Tali groaned at the quaking hostage, her disgust at the man for only caring about himself reaching a breaking point. "You had your chance and you blew it! We're wise to you! We know you only voted against giving these poor victims reparations to advance your career! The way I see it, if you really want to make amends, you'll ruin your career making sure these people get the restitution and medical attention they deserve! I'm no Biotic or medic, but I studied those L2 implants for a few minutes before coming here to help save your sorry behind, and even I can tell that anyone who had those things implanted run a serious risk of being crippled for life, or worse!" Once she had vented and took a moment to look around at all the odd and stunned looks she was getting from her squad mates and the terrorists alike, she began fidgeting with her hands and shuffling her feet nervously. "Sorry..." Was all she could think to say.

"Wow..." The terrorist leader uttered in awe, though never once removing his gun from Burns' head. "I couldn't have put it better myself." He shook his head, reminding himself why he was here. "But we can't trust him to make things right!" He insisted fiercely. "He screwed us over once, and if we let him go now, what guarantee do we have that he won't stab us in the back again?!"

"I'm an L2, like you." Kaidan assured them calmly. "Trust me. The Commander can make sure that Burns follows through."

"I don't know if you heard our discussion back in the cargo bay, but I'm the Butcher of Torfan, and the first Human SPECTRE." Shepard spoke up as she glared down at Burns. Ben's earlier description of her left her with a weird feeling in her gut, and both him and Tali voicing their disdain of the man made her just as angry with him. The combination of confused and angry made her look and sound just a little unhinged. "That basically means I'm above the law in most situations, including making sure corrupt politicians fix their mistakes under threat of death." She bluffed as the faint scent of ammonia let her know that Burns had just soiled himself in fear. "Give him a chance to fix this. If he tries to double-cross you, then let me be the one to hold the gun. You're already going to take some heat from this." She looked the leader square in the eyes. "Let me take some of it off you. You're doing this to get justice, not revenge."

The terrorist leader glanced down at Burns, then back at Shepard before lowering his weapon. "You're right. We came here to get justice." He nodded as the rest of the terrorists followed his lead. "One way or another, something WILL happen this time. We surrender." With a kick to Burns' behind, the Chairman bolted upright in fear.

"Thank you, Commander." Burns said in a shaky yet relieved voice. "I thought I was dead when they took me." Bowing his head for a moment, he continued. "I'll see to it that the reparations discussion is reopened. I didn't know they were so desperate."

"Then you weren't doing your job." Shepard looked down harshly at the man before her. "A Fifth Fleet cruiser will pick you and the prisoners up. Hopefully they'll bring a spare set of pants for you." Her joke caused Burns to look down at himself, and finally realize that his pants were very damp, much to the amusement of everyone present besides Burns himself. "Remember Burns, I'll be watching you very closely." She glared at the man, causing his to wonder whether he was safer with the terrorists that he was being rescued by Shepard. "We should go team. We're done here." She remarked as she ushered her squad out the door.

 **...**

 **Klensal**

"Is it just me, or does Shepard seem a little..." Garrus paused as the Commander roughly shoved some crashed probes into the Mako's cargo hold, unsettling the lid from a box, exposing another mummified Salarian they'd found on the second frozen sphere they found themselves on that day. "Tense to you guys?"

"Tense is good, keeps you on your toes." Wrex grunted as the Mako zoomed off. "I'm just glad we all voted Shepard out of driving this thing ever again. The new guy drives a lot smoother."

"That's just because the ground is more level than on Mavigon." Shepard frowned as she glared at the driver's seat - _my seat,_ Shepard reminded herself furiously. "And I'm the one who located the Platinum and Beryllium deposits we tagged on our descent. I should be the one driving."

"Sorry Shepard, but the crew has spoken." Ben grinned as he navigated the Mako up a steep incline and across a bumpy ridge with ease. "After today, I doubt you'll be driving the Mako again anytime soon."

"This isn't a democracy, this is the military." Jane grunted in frustration as Ben angled the Mako down the other side of the incline and circled the rim of the crater where the criminals were hiding out, Garrus gunning down their defenses and thugs with just as much ease as Ben was driving. "I'm the commanding officer, it's my ship, my equipment, I should be the one driving."

"Don't be so down, Shepard." Tali assured the Commander with a pat on the shoulder, which only irritated the SPECTRE even more. "We'll get to shoot plenty of bad guys once we're inside their base, that should make you feel better."

"Why does everyone assume I just wanna kill stuff?" Shepard grunted as Ben pulled up to the base, the last of the exterior guards dead from Garrus' top-notch sniping. "Just because I killed all the Batarians on Torfan and personally gouged out the eyes of most of them as an insult against their religious beliefs, doesn't mean violence is the only thing that makes me happy." She didn't notice, or didn't care about the nervous looks the rest of the crew was giving her at her description of her actions.

"No one here thinks you're just a violent killer, Shepard." Ben pat her on the back in assurance. "Would you care so much about helping those L2 implant victims, protecting, avenging and bettering the lives of the innocent, or clearing criminals out of the galaxy if a killer was all you were? To some people a job is just a job, but you really care about others, probably more than you care about yourself. That's something special."

Ben's words made Jane turn red, and not just from the cold. Not wanting to deal with what she was feeling - and at this point, Jane had a very good idea what she was feeling - she pushed him off of her. "Let's just get in there and make the galaxy a safer place, okay?" She huffed as she marched up a nearby set of stairs and into an elevated entrance installed in the side of the hill.

"This tunnel goes pretty deep into the ground." Ashley noted as she and Wrex took point down to long corridor the squad entered. "There could be any number of guards inside, and it's anyone's guess what the layout is."

"Those are the best kind of missions." Wrex insisted once they arrived at the second door, opening it into a large, dimly-lit cavern. "More unknowns means more surprises." With a roar, Wrex went into a blood rage and charged at a pair of thugs who had been talking casually until their arrival, reducing them to splattered piles on the floor after they only got a few shots off on the old Krogan, and sending the rest of the cavern into a panic as the rest of the squad swooped in guns blazing.

Inspired by Wrex's savage roar, Ben was inspired to try something he hadn't had the chance to yet. Activating his Echo Echo megaphone, he paired it with the Bloxx-lobber, turning his ammo pack into a white case with an 'IO' pattern glowing on the back in green lights. A white cord connected the pack to his arm, and his arm was encased in a white cylinder with glowing green spheres to the left and right of the end of the barrel, and a green speaker at the end of the weapon.

Grinning at his new weapon, he planted his feet firmly on the ground, and fired of a concentrated burst of sonic energy. Amplified by the enclosed space, the sound echoed off the rear wall, sending out a sonic burst that shattered the icy floor, dropped several stalactites from the roof of the cavern, and send everyone in the general area of the point of impact flying. Luckily, the only people in the area of effect were criminals that they were trying to kill anyway, but even though most of the thugs were taken out in the blast and the resulting domino effect, the squad was still left with a dull ringing in their ears. Wrex in particular, due to his ultra-sensitive hearing, was left feeling like he just downed a hundred bottles of ryncol for several long and agonizing seconds.

Glaring at Ben, Shepard powered through the headache she was feeling and marched over to him before smacking him upside the head.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Shepard shouted at Ben, who was rubbing his head in pain from when she smacked him. "You just set off a sonic weapon inside a cave! You could have gotten us all killed in a cave-in!"

"We were close to the exit!" Ben shouted back, his hearing just as frazzled as Shepard's was. "If there was a cave-in we could have gotten out before the bad guys even knew what was happening!"

"Well did it occur to you for one moment to let us in on your plan?!" Shepard roared at him, her hearing slowly going back to normal, but still too angry at Ben right now to lower her voice.

"Well excuse me for having complete confidence in my teammates!" Ben shouted sarcastically. "I was under the impression that we just worked well enough together to deal with anything!"

"Well you know what?!" Jane shouted back at Ben, pointing a finger at his argumentative expression with a similar look on her face to match. Not knowing what to say or where to start, her eyes darted around, inadvertently catching a passing glance at what Ben had done. While her squadmates looked a little frazzled, they were all close to cover, and clearly well placed to hide from any of the small amount of debris dusting the ground near their locations. Even Wrex only got off with a baseball sized rock to the headplate, which didn't even leave a scratch on him. Meanwhile, the crooks who'd been clustered near the back of the cavern were all either impaled by rocks, or gunned down when they were sent reeling from the boom. Her whole team was safe and with minimal injuries, while the enemy was decimated to their last. "...Never mind." Jane sighed as she made her way to the exit. "We should go now."

 **...**

 **Normandy**

Ben had tried to approach Shepard after the incident in the hideout, but she had made herself as distant as possible. Whether it was riding in the turret during the entire ride back in the Mako, or secluding herself in the Captain's Quarters as soon as they got back, she refused any interaction with anyone.

"I just want to fix things between us." Ben sighed as he and Tali ate together in the mess hall. Ben preferred most of his food in smoothie form, while Tali ate special nutrient tubes that she could slide in through her filter. "I messed up, took a risk I shouldn't have. It may have paid off, but I shouldn't have taken it in the first place. I just wish she'd come back down so I could let her know that I'm sorry."

"Don't feel too bad about it, Ben." Tali assured her boyfriend, though her voice was tinged with the slightest bit of doubt. "You wouldn't have done what you did if you thought it could hurt us."

"But I should have thought it could hurt you." Ben insisted, not letting himself off the hook. "What if the sound had cracked your helmet? You'd be exposed to who knows how many contagions. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you, especially if it was because of something I did."

"Ben..." Tali sighed sympathetically, both touched by his concern for her, and conflicted by what she knew that he didn't. Unlike him, she knew the real reason Shepard was secluding herself. Sure, her anger at his recklessness was a contributing factor, as was the shame she likely felt for overreacting - which it was, despite the concerns she voiced technically being slightly accurate and valid - but the biggest factor was something else. She and Ben had just started...dating was too strong a word. Courting? That still felt wrong. Either way, whatever they had together had only started a day ago, but Tali was enough of a closet romantic to know exactly what was happening, and she was just as conflicted with herself as she knew that Ben and Shepard no doubt were with themselves.

Meanwhile, Shepard was sulking in her quarters, trying to busy herself with compiling a record of the assignments she'd completed since Eden Prime, but finding herself distracted time and again. She wasn't stupid, she knew she'd been too hard on Ben, especially compared to some of the risks she'd taken in the past. The flashbacks to her actions on Torfan, no matter how much the Batarian bastards deserved it, reminded her that she had no room to judge. She got so many of her men killed on that mission, and being the sole survivor of a Thresher Maw attack early in her Alliance career compounded the pain she felt from all the losses she'd been witness to over the years. Bottom line, Ben took a relatively small and calculated risk that paid off with no downsides other than Wrex grumbling a little more than usual, but that was nothing she and the crew couldn't deal with.

No, the real reason she'd shut herself away was because part of her envies how easily Ben seemed to handle everything that came his way. Sure, he was hesitant to kill people when he first signed up, but he quickly worked through that. She felt like all the years she spent training and powering through everything life stacked up in front of her was being torn down piece by piece. She still had her skills, but Ben was opening doors and breaking down walls so quickly and recklessly that...it felt like he was beginning to run her crew, rather than Shepard herself. Granted, she'd never asked to be put in charge, and would gladly defer to Anderson if he asked, but this was her mission, damn it! She needed to prove she could be the SPECTRE that Humanity needed her to be. She needed to prove that her species, and the whole galaxy for that matter, could depend on her to defend them from the coming crisis that was Saren and the Reapers. Most of all though, she felt like she needed to prove to Ben that she was his equal.

The man had come here from a galaxy far, far away, created for the mission of generating progressive growth - both culturally and scientifically - in her own galaxy. He was literally made to be great, and he certainly lived up to it. It was like his every action was dictated by how it could help good people, and hurt the bad ones. Jane felt like that was her job, and while she was more than happy to have the help, sometimes he said or did things that made her feel...inadequate for her role. Manipulating high ranking military officials and other VIPs, swaying people away from centuries of prejudice, even forcing mechanics and scientists to rethink everything that thought they new about their craft despite clearly knowing little to nothing on the subjects.

If it was just jealousy however, she could deal with that. She'd never been the jealous type before, and there was only one reason she was being jealous and felt the need to prove herself above it now.

She was beginning to fall for Ben Tennyson...But he was already spoken for.

 **Well, I cranked that chapter out a lot faster than I thought I would. Granted, you have no way of knowing for sure how much time I devoted to this chapter, but suffice to say it was much shorter than usual. Sorry if things puttered out near the end there, but sometimes I gotta crunch my thoughts into a smaller package to keep the story flowing at least somewhat organically. I'm also sorry if anyone thinks I'm forcing the romance out too fast, but I just write it as it comes to me. I have a plan, but the details get hammered out along the way. Anyway, please continue to read and review to my work, and feel free to look at some of my other stories. Who know? You may just get some interesting ideas of your own. Also, could someone maybe make a TVTropes page for this story? I'd really like to see that.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Just go!**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 7

The Gates of Hell

 **Trebin**

Shepard had really wanted to stay away from Ben and Tali for a while, at least until she could sort her thoughts out in a way that wouldn't interfere in their missions and assignments. Fate, it seemed, had other ideas in mind, as not ten minutes after they got back to the Normandy did they receive a brief distress beacon pinging from a nearby desert planet called Trebin. Apparently, ExoGeni Corp had been experimenting with a long term terraforming project on the planet, and something had gone wrong with the survey team monitoring the process. With no clue what they were getting into, Shepard was left with little option but to bring the whole team along for the assignment.

"Can you believe our luck?!" Garrus flared his mandibles enthusiastically, completely missing the tense atmosphere in the Mako as he gushed over a tattered old flag. "The Nimines Colony flag, right next to our landing sight! Wait until my stubborn old man back on Palaven hears about this! Wasting my time on a SPECTRE team indeed." He chuckled smugly as he gingerly placed the flag back in the container they'd found it in.

"I'm happy for you Garrus." Ben droned sarcastically as he steered the Mako gently over a high dune. "I really am."

"You should be." Garrus gently reprimanded Ben for his sarcasm. "Recovering the original insignia from just one of the 17 colonies and outposts lost during the Unification War is gonna get the crew that recovered it a lot of respect from my people."

"And why would we want the respect of a race of warmongers who attack innocent civilian colonies?" Ashley shot back a little too sharply, eliciting a gruff chuckle from Wrex.

"Ash, try to play nice." Kaidan politely urged his colleague. "We're here to help build bridges, remember?"

"We're here to answer a distress beacon." Shepard reminded them as she motioned for Ben to spot the Mako, quickly hopping out to place a marker on an easily available Plutonium deposit the Mako's sensors picked up before jumping back in and motioning Ben forward. "After that, we still haven't gotten around to finding Dr. T'Soni, let alone catching and/or killing her mother or Saren."

"Speaking of killing - not that I condone it - it looks like we've got company." Ben remarked as he took note of several armed individuals that had just opened fire on them without warning. "Garrus, stop fawning over that flag and get in your turret."

"Since when is this suddenly my turret?" Garrus made the Turian equivalent of a frown even as he did as instructed. "Not that I'm complaining, and I am the best shot in the squad after all, but..." He trailed off as he finished off the last of the targets. "You know what, never mind what I was just saying. This is officially my turret now, I call dibs." He boasted as he made the Turian equivalent of a smug grin.

"I'm getting outta here to check the bodies before the Turian's head gets too big for this tin can to hold." Wrex grunted as he pulled himself out of the Mako.

"It looks like there's a crashed probe there too." Tali added as she and the rest of the crew piled out of the Mako as well. "I'm gonna see if there's anything we can salvage."

"I'm not liking the looks of this." Shepard frowned as she checked the coordinates they'd gotten from the distress beacon. "This is starting to look too much like a scavenger operation for my tastes." After she gave the probe Tali was stripping for parts a once over, she turned back to the corpses of the people who were shooting at them. All five of the were way too well armed for this to be a random crash site.

"Agreed." Tali seconded the notion, trying to stay professional while also giving Shepard a wide berth. "The distress beacon is way too close to this downed probe to be coincidence, and these guys are clearly well equipped to loot a complex machine like this." She grunted as she tried and failed to lift a few heavy parts out of the wreckage. "Wrex, could you give me a hand with carrying some of these parts back to the Mako?"

"Sure thing, kiddo." The surly old Krogan remarked with an unusual amount of cordiality in his tone. With a single heave, he easily hoisted the large piece of machinery Tali had been struggling with into his arms, and began his walk back to the Mako.

"Let me help with the rest of this stuff." Jane offered as she snatched half a pile of smaller parts from the young Quarian before waiting for a response.

"There's really no need to-" Tali nervously tried to begin.

"I insist." Shepard said with an air of finality as she refused to turn back. The Commander was fully aware her actions were childish, and there was no point in getting huffy over a pile of what her eyes barely registered as more than scrap, but she needed to feel useful before she could really start to get angry.

"...Any idea what that was all about?" Ben asked Tali worriedly. "Jane's been acting weird ever since we saved Chairman Burns from those Biotics. I'm getting kinda worried about her."

Tali took a long, hard look at Shepard as she shoved the salvage onto the Mako, then at Ben - her adorably confused kinda, sorta boyfriend - and let out a sigh. "Keelah, why are the cute ones always so dumb?" She asked rhetorically as she carried the last of the viable salvage back to the Mako.

"Who are you calling cute?" Ben pouted as he followed behind her, sarcastically ignoring that she called him dumb. "You have felt my muscles, right? I'm clearly sexy."

 _That's part of the problem, you heroic moron._ Tali and Jane thought simultaneously as the hopped back into the Mako. Once they were in, Tali grabbed Shepard by the arm and pulled her close.

"We need to talk." She whispered at her unspoken rival.

"Later, when Ben's not around." Jane frowned tensely as the source of their internal conflict got in the driver's seat and sped off.

In less than a minute, the Mako pulled up next to the source of the strange distress signal, though nobody was in the area. Upon getting out to examine the small tower structure that was transmitting the signal, Shepard frowned as her suspicions were confirmed. "Just as I thought. Those scavengers back there set up this signal scrambler to mess with the GPS of the survey team's satellites, so they could pick the crashed probes clean for tech salvage to fence. Our sensors just happened to pick it up as a distress beacon by chance." Nodding in approval as Tali deactivated the scrambler, she checked her Omni-tool again, only to be surprised to see the distress beacon was once again pinging, but from a different location this time. "That's odd, the distress signal is back, and it's much clearer this time."

"Maybe the distress beacon was real, and this thing was just scrambling it." Ben suggested as he casually activated his Fourarms DNA and hoisted the deactivated device onto the Mako, before strapping it down with a few cables from the cargo hold.

"If so, we need to find them and make sure they're okay." Shepard went back into mission-mode, her anger at the scavengers who - inadvertently or otherwise - placed innocent people in danger just to make a few quick credits putting her conflicted emotions in lockdown as the crew piled back into the Mako and sped off again towards the new source of the signal.

After two minutes of cruising over tall rocks and across plains of sand, they quickly arrived at their new destination. It was a sparsely equipped base camp, with nothing more than three large containers for rest and equipment, a ground transport, and a pair of relatively small silos for food and water. Going into one of the containers, they found a few beds and a computer, the latter of which Tali wasted no time hacking into. "According to these data logs, the survey team unearthed some kind of alien technology." She noted curiously. "They have a dig site where they found the tech nearby. If they aren't here, then that's were they must be."

"Then that's where we're going too." Shepard remarked as she looted a few weapons from a nearby locker. "We should go now."

"Before we do that, do you steal random stuff everywhere you go?" Ben asked worriedly at the casual act of thievery his friend just committed.

"Early in my career, I survived alone for weeks on an uncharted planet after a Thresher Maw killed the rest of my unit during a training exercise." Shepard remarked blithely as she piled the weapons into the Mako. "I then went on to fight front and center during the Skylian Blitz and the retaliatory attack on Torfan two years later. If a little kleptomania is the worst symptom I have from all that PTSD, I'd say I got off pretty lightly."

"...Can't argue with that." Ben sighed as he tried to get back in the driver seat, only for Shepard to get there first and grin at him smugly, easily jerking her thumb back, indicating for him to get in the back. "I suppose I can't argue with that either." He sighed as the crew resigned themselves to a very bumpy ride for the rest of the assignment.

For the rest of their lives, the crew of the Normandy would never know or fully understand - or even want to know or understand - just how Commander Shepard managed to turn a simple 100 meter drive across a flat sandy plain and down a gentle incline into a thrill ride worthy of the most nausea inducing roller coaster. All they knew for certain was that they could NEVER allow Shepard to drive again, a vow that they repeatedly failed to keep over the years.

"Remind me to kick Ben's ass when we get back to the Normandy." Kaidan groaned as he popped his spine back into alignment as the crew entered a cavern where the base camp said the excavation site was.

"What did I do?!" Ben protested as they approached another bulkhead.

"If you have to ask, you'll never know." Ashley grunted as she popped her shoulder back into its socket.

"Hold up!" Shepard commanded as she moved closer to the other end of the corridor and closed her eyes, focusing her other senses. "Do you guys hear that?"

"I don't hear anything." Garrus remarked curiously. "Why? Do you think it might be the survey team?"

"I'm not sure, but..." Shepard hummed as she tried to place the sound she was hearing, her eyes snapping open in shock and fury as she remembered where she heard that sound before. "No..." She growled as her stomach sank, pulling out an assault rifle as her blood began to boil. "Get ready for a fight everyone!" She ordered as she opened the door, revealing a chamber full of...

"Husks!" Ashley hissed as she flashed back to Eden Prime, the sight of innocent colonists and her fellow soldiers being impaled on those spikes and converted into those inhuman...things burning hotly in the pit of her heart.

"Kill them all!" Like the hammer on an old pistol, Shepard's command sent the entire squad rushing out of the corridor, guns blazing and biotics and grenades flying as the ten or so Husks in the room were quickly steamrolled by the aggressive onslaught of angry soldiers. "I hate these goddamn thing!" Shepard spat once the last of them fell and dissolved.

"I don't see any Geth around." Ben remarked suspiciously as he visually scoured the chamber. "Last time we fought these things, it was the Geth that made them from people by impaling them on these crazy spikes."

"We call them Dragon's Teeth." Kaidan fumed as he also searched the room. "And you've got a point, I don't see any Geth, or any Dragon's Teeth."

"Then perhaps it was not Geth that were responsible for this tragedy." Quasar suggested impartially. "There is still very little we understand about these Husks, and the manner in which they are created."

"Maybe there are some answers through these other doors." Tali remarked uncertainly as she approached the back on the cavern, only to back up in shock when the doors opened up and sent more Husks pouring in. "Bosh'tet!" She cursed as she fired off a few shotgun blasts while retreating, the rest of the squad immediately coming to her aid, Garrus in particular being a big help by sniping a few nearby canisters filled with explosive material, each explosion engulfing multiple Husks.

"Get over here!" Ben roared as he lashed out with a Wildvine whip at the last of the Husks, grabbing it and pulling it in before using his Fourarms mode to rip off both its arms and legs simultaneously. "Fatality!" Dusting off his hands with a chuckle, he noticed the rest of the crew was giving him weird looks. "Joker told me to do that if we ever found more of these guys." He explained sheepishly, immediately getting sympathetic nods of understanding from the rest of the squad.

"Come on team, we need to search these other tunnels for any trace of what did this to these people." Shepard instructed firmly. "Tali, you come with me to identify any possible traces of Geth. The rest of you pair up as you will." Getting quick snaps of affirmative from most of the squad, and a reluctant nod from the Quarian in question, everyone paired off and began searching a different area of the underground caverns.

"Can't say I'm surprised you pick now to give us an opportunity to discuss...things." Tali remarked nervously as the duo walked down the tunnel.

"I've always been more comfortable on a battlefield than dealing with emotions." Jane sighed blithely. "Besides, you're the one who wanted to talk in the first place."

"Right..." Tali wrung her hands as she searched for the right words. Eventually, she decided to do what Quarians do best, and get right to the root of the problem, rather than dancing around it. "Look Shepard, my helmet may obscure my face, but I'm not blind. I can tell that you're attracted to Ben."

"Not by choice, I can tell you that much." Jane grumbled, earning her a strange look from Tali in response. "He just has this way of influencing everyone into trying to make a positive change without even really trying." She elaborated as they arrived at the other door of the tunnel. "He's so charismatic and good and insistent at helping others, and everything he does to help others seems to be geared towards some unknowable goals I don't fully understand myself - even when he explains his reasons - but can't help but find myself supporting." Opening the door, she growled at the sight of several Dragon's Teeth inside. "Fuck! So the Geth really were here!"

"...I'm not sure it's the Geth." Tali said hesitantly as she walked over to inspect the Dragon's Teeth. "I've been studying everything my people know about the Geth, both from 300 years ago, and everything we salvaged or stole from them since, and the technology in these...disgusting things seems...off."

"Explain." Shepard commanded curtly.

"The Geth were originally made by my people." Tali began, confident in her element. "Both their hardware and their software is based on our design, and many technical elements we built into them back when we still controlled them are still being used by them today, albeit with some improvements and modifications here and there. The Dragon's Teeth however, are all wrong."

"That's a way of putting it." Shepard growled as she stared at one of the offending spikes, silently wishing she could destroy them with just the force of her glare.

"Not what I meant." Tali shook her head as she tried to think of terms to describe her observations a non-engineer would understand. "Try looking at it this way. The Geth have spent 300 years developing their own technology based on what we left in their programming and on our homeworld and colonies, creating their own sort of culture based on our own. Keelah, they really are their own people, aren't they. And we tried to..." She had left herself speechless by her own comparison.

"Tali, focus!" Shepard snapped her fingers, startling the Quarian out of her stupor.

"Right, sorry about that." Tali apologized sheepishly. "Anyway, my point is that the Geth of today still have traces of Quarian technology - and to a lesser extent, our culture - built into their own technology, and whatever they have that passes for the AI version of government. Think of it like old friends or family not seeing each other for years, and they end up completely different people from who they were." She briefly paused as the implications of thinking of the Geth as actual people sank into her again, the feeling still slightly foreign to her. "They might not agree on things they way they used to, they may even hate each other, but there are still some traces of the people they used to be, and of the connection they once shared. By comparison, these Dragon's Teeth are like a complete outsider that forced themselves into the relation."

"You're saying the Geth didn't make these things." Shepard realized what Tali was getting at. "That they were given to them by someone else. The Reapers, maybe?"

"It's more of a gut feeling based on years of studying any tech and manuals I can get my hands on than anything else, really." Tali explained sadly. "This technology is so alien to me, that I highly doubt Saren or Benezia would be able to make something like this themselves, or even outsource it to any manufacturer in the galaxy. Unfortunately, whether or not you believe me, I highly doubt the Council will take the word of a single Quarian as proof that something bigger than the Geth is at work here."

"For what it's worth, I absolutely believe and trust you." Shepard nodded affirmatively as she and Tali made their way back the way they came. "You've been a big help since we first met, you have no reason to lie about this, and the fact that you're keeping an open mind about the Geth and how involved in this they are is surprisingly profound for a Quarian."

"...I'll be honest, I'm not really trying to keep an open mind about Geth, or AIs in general." Tali sighed tiredly. "It's more like Ben forced that door open, and he's just being too damn adorable and hunky for me to try and close it on him."

"I told you he's good at influencing people." Jane sighed wistfully as she absentmindedly tapped out a tune on the metal walls of the tunnel. "Even so, knowing something you don't like is fact and accepting it as such are two very different things. People can be very set in their ways when they want to be."

"You give me too much credit, Shepard." Tali denied her compliment. "Acknowledging our mistakes with the Geth is hardly an uncommon sentiment among the Flotilla. Recent years have even seen a small but growing movement of Quarians who want to make amends with the Geth, with one of the five Admirals even leading the movement."

"What about the other four?" Shepard inquired curiously, quickly stopping just short of the door and turning about face when she noticed Tali's footsteps had stopped. "Tali?" She asked the girl in concern.

"I'd rather not talk about the Admirals right now." Tali hissed tensely, the topic seemingly too personal for her to speak of. "We've been avoiding what I called you aside to talk about, most likely deliberately. We need to talk about Ben." She said firmly.

"What's there to talk about?" Jane asked, honestly confused. "Look, I know I've been a bit of a jerk lately, but it'll pass soon enough. I'm not one to let my emotions get in the way of a mission, especially not one as important as this. Besides, he chose you first, and I respect that."

"There's more to it than that." Tali shook her head as she struggled to find the right words, eventually gesturing to herself. "Look at me Shepard. Tell me what you see."

Shepard tilted her head, not sure where Tali was going with this, but willing to play along. "I see a strong young woman with rocking hips and more mechanical know-how than any other engineer I've ever seen."

"You give me too much credit." Tali scoffed nervously, even as she rubbed her hips and ass thoughtfully. "Look closer Shepard, at the physical. What do you really see?" Seeing the confused look and hearing the silence Shepard was giving her, Tali's frustration reached a peak. "My suit Shepard! I'm talking about my suit!"

"...Is that what this is about?" Jane chuckled in amusement at the source of Tali's inner conflict. "Tali, Ben is too nice a guy to care about your suit. Hell, I'm pretty sure he thinks it's sexy."

"When I'm wearing it!" Tali pointed out tiredly. "What about when he wants to touch my skin, or I want to touch his? If we want to kiss, or have sex?! Keelah, I want to have sex with him so badly. Just imagining his big, strong arms against my bare skin..." Shepard took a step back as Tali began giggling like a perverted schoolgirl...which was probably a very apt description. "My point is, I have to wear my suit at all times, or even the slightest contamination from external sources could make me incredibly sick, possibly even kill me. Immunizations and certain herbal remedies and supplements can bolster my immune system enough to take my suit off in controlled environments for a few hours, but even that usually leaves a Quarian with at least a mild allergic reaction. That's not even getting into the biological difference! His DNA may have used Human as a base, but even that works on a completely opposite set of amino acids, and that's before we get into what other genetic material was used to make him! Who knows how my body would react to it?!"

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Shepard asked in exasperation. "From what I can tell, there's nothing I can do about any of that."

"I want you to sleep with Ben!" Of all the things Tali could have said, that was the most surprising possibility.

"What?" Was all Jane could muster to say as her brain struggled to play catch-up.

"I love Ben." Tali continued, her voice incredibly serious. "I've only known him for a few days, but in that time I've learned enough about him to know that I'll never be able to find anyone as amazing, and caring, and just plain sensible and sensitive as him again for as long as I live. Call me a romantic - Keelah, call Quasar a romantic for practically setting us up in the first place back when we met - but I want to spend the rest of my life with this man I met just a few days ago!"

"That's...quite a declaration." Jane remarked in astonishment. "But if you love him that much, why ask me to sleep with him? Is it just because of your suit?"

"It's more than that!" Tali sighed in frustration. "Sure, maybe in the beginning I was considering having you have sex with him on my behalf, have you give him something I wasn't sure I could give him. I'd seen how much you want him, but that was just the start." She pressed her head against her helmet as she shook her head. "It didn't take me long to realize that the very idea was selfish, that I shouldn't let you have the physical part of a relationship without the emotional aspect. Then I realized that my plan would make the inverse apply to me, all emotion and nothing physical, and I really want the physical." She hissed, her hidden perversion starting to both freak out and excite Jane. "Eventually, I realized that if I love Ben enough to even consider this, then on some level I must actually WANT this."

"You...want Ben to cheat on you?" Jane asked hesitantly, once again surprised by just how sexually deviant the otherwise quiet Tali could be.

"I want him to love you as much as he loves me." Tali clarified, her tone passionate and caring. "Shepard, I trust you. Not as much as I trust Ben, but I do trust you. The thought of being apart from Ben hurts, that's how much he already means to me, that's how much of an impact he's had on my life in just a few days. If you feel as strongly about Ben as I do, I don't want to take that away from you."

"...Even if I agree to this, and that's a big IF, why would you want to do this?" Jane asked hesitantly. "What possible benefit could sharing Ben provide you?"

"I don't need it to have a benefit." Tali admitted easily. "Emotions are one of the few things my people can afford to give freely, but trust is much more difficult. I may be a romantic with fantasies of being whisked away on a galactic adventure by a strong, adventurous, and ruggedly handsome hero with bulging pecs, rock hard biceps, well-toned abs, and...where was I going with this?" She asked herself absently as the thought of Ben with his armor and shirt off distracted her.

"I think I get the picture." Jane sighed as a similar image floated into her mind at Tali's description, though she forced it down much easier than the very perverted Quarian. "...You're seriously okay with this?"

"Okay...not really." Tali admitted hesitantly, fidgeting with her hands for several seconds before continuing. "...Eager? Absolutely..." She chuckled perversely for a few seconds, until the adrenaline and heat of the conversation that had been building faded away, leaving a very nervous woman with no personal _experience_ behind. "Did I just -hic- say that out loud?" She asked in dread.

"Absolutely." Jane teased her friend, causing her to groan in embarrassment - and possibly mild pain at having her now apparent buzz wearing off - at her earlier boldness and Shepard's echoing of her eagerness. "I'm not making any promises, but I'll give some thought to the idea." She eventually relented.

"Thanks Shepard." Tali sighed in slight relief as Shepard began the process to open the door. "Just for the record though, I'm pretty sure seeing and fighting those Husks, and the awkwardness of the conversation we had left me temporarily insane. Plus there was that teeny-tiny sip of Turian brandy I swiped from Garrus's supplies before we left on this assignment to work up the courage to talk about this. You won't tell the others about some of the...things I said...right?" She pleaded nervously as the hatch fully opened.

"I'm not making any promises." Jane once again echoed her previous teasing, leaving Tali very nervous as to her future social standing on the Normandy, and Jane curiously intrigued as to how Tali would fare with more than just a _teeny-tiny_ sip of alcohol in her system.

 **...**

 **Sharjila**

After getting back to the Normandy and sending a report to Anderson, the crew was all set to make the final jump to Therum to find and retrieve Liara T'Soni, when they received an anonymous tip - which Quasar traced back through a few proxy servers to an Asari diplomat named Nassana Dantius - of a surge in pirate activity nearby. Apparently, a group of slavers had gotten wind of the recent shootouts that claimed the lives of two relatively noteworthy crime lords and their subordinates, and decided to start making moves. Feeling somewhat responsible for causing the power vacuum that emboldened the slavers in question, curious as to why this Nassana woman would go through the trouble of making an anonymous report that sounded suspiciously like a guilt trip the more they thought of it, and in Shepard's case in-particular, eager to clear her head and make a decision regarding Tali's increasingly tempting offer, the crew set out to investigate - and likely kill - the pirates in question.

Unfortunately, the ground team had to work with one less pair of feet on the ground than they were used to, as Tali had stayed behind to examine the scans they'd taken of the Dragon's Teeth, as well as strip the salvage that had been piling up in their cargo hold for parts, and make a few minor upgrades to the ship. Even more unfortunately, the planet they had landed on was classified as a Level 1 Hazard due to the unusually dense atmosphere, and the unusually high levels of ammonia in said atmosphere. This meant that any time spent outside of the Mako had to be done while completely encased in their suits, and kept as brief as possible.

"You Humans are too squishy for your own good." Wrex complained as he lounged around while the rest of the squad was rushing to salvage an old camp they'd found. "This is nothing but a stiff and stinky wind on Tuchanka. And why are we salvaging this old pile of scrap anyway? Don't we have pirates to kill?"

"We can multitask." Kaidan quickly assured the contrary old Krogan. "Besides, some of the stuff we found here look like those Asari Writings general Septimus told us about. You never know how useful it could turn out to be."

"Somehow I doubt the journals of some stuffy old biddies will be very helpful to humanity." Ashley countered even as she also hauled the last of the cargo back into the Mako. "Still, I follow Commander Shepard's orders to the letter, as any good soldier should."

"Technically, I left C-Sec so I didn't have to follow orders anymore." Garrus jokingly countered Ashley's counter as the crew piled back into the Mako. When he saw that Shepard had slipped into the driver's seat when Ben wasn't looking however, he felt a weight drop in the pit of his stomach. "Not that I would ever consider Shepard's judgement to be even a fraction as unhelpful as C-Sec's ugly bureaucracy."

"Nice try Garrus." Jane grinned like a predator who just spotted her latest prey. "Buckle up." The crew immediately did so, not needing to be told twice, or even once for that matter, as Shepard sped off like a madwoman.

"Yet another reason you humans are way too squishy!" Wrex cackled as Shepard navigated the jutting rocks and steep inclines like she was born to drive over the most impossible obstacles, while making the ride as unpleasant as possible for everyone else. "You think this is a rough ride, all I see is a-gkth!" He spat as the jerking of the vehicle coming to a sudden stop next to a resource deposit caused him to bite his tongue. "...Not one word." He hiss/slurred through the throbbing of his tongue as Shepard forced Ben to rush out and plant a beacon in the deposit for the Alliance to come by and claim it later.

"I'm not saying anything." Kaidan grinned humorously. "No matter how much I want to."

"Garrus, we've got hostiles up ahead!" Shepard's barking voice brought the squad out of their musings. "I want them dead yesterday!"

"Just watch the road rage, Commander." Garrus quipped back as he sniped the enemy snipers before they could snipe them.

"Impossible." Ben deadpanned as Shepard pulled around to the entrance of the base the snipers were guarding, Garrus gunning down the pirates that were stupid enough to try and take on a Mako in a dust storm with nothing but the guns and armor on their backs. "Shepard never even bothers with roads to begin with."

"I also never bothered avoiding future roadkill!" Shepard retorted as she violently and mercilessly ran over a fleeing pirate. "So watch it with the attitude there, soldier!"

"As I recall, Ambassador Tennyson is not a soldier under your command." Quasar slyly countered Shepard's instruction. "As such, he is not obligated to follow your instructions."

"Thanks for the reminder, Quasar." Ben grinned at his partner's hologram as the battle - really a massacre - outside drew to a close. "She's so bossy I had honestly forgotten for a moment there."

"So I'm bossy, am I?" Jane smirked as she literally kicked Ben out of the Mako, jumping out after him, her boots slamming into the ground right next to his head.

"...I don't know why I didn't see this coming." Ben admitted sheepishly, even though the grin on his face hidden by his helmet painted a different picture. _She reminds me so much of Gwen when we were kids. Is it weird or gross that I find that kinda hot?_ He shook the thought from his head as the squad made tracks to enter the actual base. Physical attraction to Shepard aside, Ben already had Tali, and he wasn't about to do anything that could upset her.

If only he knew.

"Alright people, be ready for anything." Shepard snapped into 'serious commando mode' once they had entered the base. "This shouldn't be any different from the last two pirate bases we raided, but you never know what tricks these types might have up their sleeves." Activating the keypad for the inner door, everyone immediately rushed in and ran for cover as the bullets started flying when someone shouted "Kill 'em all". Garrus nestled himself beneath an indoor window and sniped anyone who emerged from cover, doing heavy damage to their shields with every headshot. Ashley and Wrex rushed forward, charging and gunning down anything that moved. Kaidan, spotting an enemy Krogan charging at Shepard, turned off his gravity with his biotics, sending the Krogan floating in the air where Shepard hammered him with continuous assault rifle fire, leaving him wide open for Ben to use his Fourarms DNA to punch the ground to jump up and slam all four fists into the Krogan, sending him flying into two other pirates, and then an explosive canister, killing all three at once. Before he could celebrate his victory, or even recoil in disgust at the brutal triple execution he'd just conducted, Ben found himself surrounded by a familiar blue glow and suspended in midair, completely powerless to control his motion even as he tried to use his Stinkfly wings to navigate.

"I'll kill you!" Growled the Asari responsible as she concentrated all her fire on Ben, quickly draining his shields and then his armor to a critical point.

"Not before I kill you!" Shepard roared as she charged at the Asari, dual-wielding a shotgun and pistol in her rage and rush to protect Ben. It was a close call, but Shepard's quick thinking and rage had managed to divert the Asari's attention long enough to completely drain her shields and kill her, before she could do the same to Ben. "Sitrep! Who's still alive?!" She barked once the Asari was dead.

"We're all okay, Commander." Ashley responded, though Shepard's attention was largely on Ben as he pulled himself to his feet, an arm pressed to his side.

"I think I took a hit there, Jane." Ben groaned as he pulled his hand away from his side, a small trace of blood on his hand and side where a bullet had managed to pierce his armor and graze him. "...I'm...bleeding..." He said as the sight of his own blood on his hand left him stunned.

"Medic!" Shepard ordered with more force than she meant to, the sight of Ben suffering his first injury under her command making her almost as frustrated as when Tali had seen him first lose his shields.

"That will not be necessary, Commander Shepard." Quasar assured her as the hole in Ben's armor closed up, as if it were made of liquid and just flowed back into place after a rock broke the surface. "My body is designed to apply Medi-gel to injured areas on my partner's body and self repair any minor damage to the suit itself in a matter of seconds."

"...Right." Shepard sighed in embarrassment as the tension rushed out with her breath, holstering her weapons as she did so. "Alright everyone, I want to know what it is about this pirate group in particular that has an ambitious Asari diplomat jumping through hoops to dispose of, while keeping her own name out of the loop. Pair up and scour this base from top to bottom."

"I'll go with you." Wrex grunted as he pushed Kaidan and Garrus out of the way. "Between the boy scout biotic, racist female, and the only Turian in the galaxy who thinks he's actually funny, you're one of the only two people here I can half stand being around, and Ben's already got that AI creeping around in his suit to keep him company."

"Fair enough." Shepard shrugged, not thinking twice about the old Krogan's decision as the rest of the crew spread out in a grid while she and Wrex went to search upstairs. Once they were alone and had searched one of the rooms upstairs, Wrex decided to open his big mouth.

"I see the way you look at Tennyson." Wrex half-grunted, half-chuckled as he yanked the lid off a shipping container, causing Shepard to tense for half a second as she was in the middle of doing the same. "We may be different species, but I recognize the telltale signs of a smitten brat no matter what the face in question looks like."

"And what are you gonna do with that information?" Shepard asked, keeping her voice level as she didn't even bother to deny his claims, knowing the Krogan was older and wiser than about half of all human cultures active and practiced today.

"I think I'm just gonna sit back and watch." Wrex shrugged his hump casually as they moved to search another room. "Too old to be getting quads deep in other folk's personal lives. Word of advice though, if you try to make a move, make sure the Quarian isn't in the same room. She strikes me as the territorial sort."

"You worried I can't take her?" Jane bantered, wisely keeping quiet about Tali's earlier offer. "I am a SPECTRE you know."

"Given the choice between fighting a SPECTRE, and fighting an angry Quarian, give me the SPECTRE any day." Wrex seamlessly retorted, this time actually catching Shepard by surprise. "There are two reasons for that. First of all, fighting a Quarian under any circumstances short of life or death just doesn't sit right with me. They've all got it worse than any Krogan out there. After all, there are still about two or three billion Krogan left, and the older ones like myself actually remember a time before the Genophage, back when we were kinda asking for it in hindsight. There's less than twenty million Quarians left, and not one of them has ever known a galaxy without the Geth, or even a homeworld to call their own."

"That's exactly why I don't want to make a move on Ben." Jane sighed as she pulled out a few guns to bring back to help supply the Alliance. "He's more than just Tali's boyfriend, he's the best hope her people have to resolve this pointless conflict they have with the Geth." She huffed out a soft laugh at the thought of conflict with the Geth being pointless after her personal experience with them. "And the second reason?"

"They're survivors." Wrex remarked in actual admiration. "They've gone three hundred years without anyplace to call home but those rusty old ships of theirs, and they're still giving it their all. Not exactly thriving, but I'd like to see any other species do half as well as they have under the same circumstances. Probably be extinct within a decade."

"Yeah, they are pretty damn impressive, aren't they?" Jane smiled as her respect for Tali's entire species grew.

"Shame you're not a Krogan." Wrex chuckled. "If ya were, your problem could get sorted out a lot easier."

"I honestly can't argue with you on that, Wrex." Jane deadpanned. _"Though probably not for the reasons you're thinking of."_ She joked to herself as she spotted an important looking datapad. "Hello, what have we...here?" She grinned sadistically as she read through the scrolling text, possibilities stirring around her head like an enraged Krogan. "C'mon Wrex!" She waved her comrade over as she downloaded the data from the pad onto her Omni-tool. "I've found what I was looking for. Let's make one last sweep for resources in the Mako, and get back to the Normandy.

"Just so long as you're not the one driving." Wrex retorted as he rubbed his stubby tail gingerly, eliciting a grumble from Shepard about her driving being _'not that bad'_.

 **...**

 **Edolus**

"Curse your generous nature, Ben." Jane protested in a surly tone for the 23rd time since they landed on the windy, mountainous, desert planet they were currently driving around. "Coming here is a bad idea, mark my words."

"You keep saying that, but all I see are more reasons you should love this place." Ben joked as he and Tali finished setting up the third resource probe they'd needed since arriving. "We've got easily accessible resource deposits, a crashed probe and ground transport to salvage, and even a mummified Salarian corpse. I thought you loved all those things."

"I still think I should get to eat one of those stupid Salarians." Wrex huffed bitterly. "After what they did to my people, I say they can do without one or two of their precious dead spies from a few thousand years ago."

"We've gone over this before Wrex, you can't eat historical artifacts." Kaidan rolled his eyes tiredly.

"Nor do I see why in the Spirits you would want to." Garrus waved a hand in front of his face to waft away the stench and dust of the dried up corpse. "Eating sentients - even long dead sentients - aside, it probably tastes worse than anything even you've ever eaten."

"Shows what you know, I once drank a liquefied Turian on a dare." Wrex scoffed, causing everyone - Garrus especially - to nervously shuffle a few steps away from him. "Granted, that was a total mistake that left me feeling like my insides wanted to become my outsides, but you know what they say: Live long enough, and you'll try anything twice."

"Isn't the saying that you'll try anything once if you live long enough?" Ashley gulped nervously.

"Krogan can live a lot longer than the rest of the galaxy." Wrex chuckled, prompting everyone else to abruptly stop asking questions and get back to following the distress beacon that their sensors had detected upon entering the system. Thanks to Ben's smooth driving, despite the incredibly steep inclines and rugged terrain, they soon arrived at a large, flat area with a simple distress beacon and a ground transport near the middle.

"Something about this feels...off." Shepard tensed in her seat as they approached the beacon.

"You worry too much, Commander." Tali assured her gently. "What could possibly-" She was stopped cold when the ground suddenly started shaking, and a MASSIVE worm-like...creature emerged from near the beacon. "Me and my big mouth." The Quarian gulped in fear.

"Thresher Maw..." Shepard gasped in shock, images of lost colleagues, weeks of desperate struggles to survive, and more carnage than she cared to remember flashing through her mind as the world vanished around her. She didn't know how long the PTSD from...the incident...kept her paralyzed and for all intents and purposes dead to the world, but the moment she regained even a fraction of her sound mind, she roughly hammered open the door to the Mako with a single punch, combat rolled out, ignoring the cries of protest from her squad, and began to unload clip after clip from every gun she had into the...bastard that had dared to force her to relive what had to be the single most traumatic moments in her military career, roaring in rage as she unloaded everything she had into the beast. She was so hyped up on adrenaline, that she didn't even notice that Ben had walked up behind her until he had used his Fourarms mode to restrain both her arms and legs.

"Jane! Jane!" Ben shouted at her over her feral cries. "Jane! You need to calm down!"

"Never!" Jane shouted furiously as she strained to overpower Ben's grip, giving him a very rough time of it in the process. "I won't stop shooting until that bastard is DEAD!"

"But it is dead!" Ben shouted at Jane, his words shocking her so much that the blood that had been rushing to her head, making her see nothing but red and pain, quickly rushed back to her heart, silencing her shouts in the process.

"It...it's dead?" Jane blinked in shock when she saw that, true to what Ben had said, the Thresher Maw was indeed lying dead on the sand, blood flowing freely from several gunshot wounds, and massive chunks of its body having been ripped right off by gunfire, some of which looked to have been done after the beast was already dead. "Did...did I do that?" She asked as she looked down at her hands in stunned silence.

"Ben and the Turian managed to get a few shots in." Wrex grinned as he approached. "But yeah, most of that was just you." Nodding at the carcass, then at Shepard in approval, he gave her a strong pat on the back, making her stumble forward slightly, as she hadn't realized Ben had set her down. "Damn good job you did too, if I do say so myself. Haven't seen someone take down a Thresher Maw or be filled with so much rage since my Rite of Passage. You've got a quad Shepard, that's not a compliment I give lightly, especially to a non-Krogan."

"Am I ever gonna be anything other than 'The Turian' to you?" Garrus protested half-sarcastically.

"Give me some time to get to know you better, I'm sure I'll come up with some other nicknames." Wrex chuckled in response, an answer worse than a 'no' if Garrus had ever heard one.

"Are you gonna be okay, Commander?" Kaidan asked in concern. "I know you have a history with Thresher Maws, and-"

"Stow it! Lieutenant Alenko." Shepard replied tensely before relenting with a tired sigh. "What of the distress beacon, and the soldiers?"

"Deactivated, and dead. In that order." Tali answered as she and Ashley walked up, the two apparently having taken the initiative to check them out while Shepard was blinded by rage. "Apparently, some sick Bosh'tet decided to set this whole thing up as a trap, so they could lure the marines in with a fake distress beacon, and have the Thresher Maw kill them off."

"Somebody...planned all of this?!" Shepard hissed in barely contained fury as burning questions blurred through her rage fueled imagination. "What sickos...What possible reason...How many times...Was my unit..."

"Jane..." Ben asked gently as he placed his once again normal hand on her shoulder. "Orders?"

 _I'll give you orders._ Jane thought in arousal, vivid images of her and Ben in various states of undress and intertwining of their bodies flashing through her mind. _Steady Jane, don't do anything you'll regret...at least not until you think it through._ She cooled her heels as she recalled Tali's standing offer. "Let's just get back to the Normandy so I can write up a report for the Alliance before I find a way to blow up this entire planet." As she walked back to the Mako and willingly got into the passenger seat, the squad wasn't entirely sure whether or not she would - or more importantly, could - make good on that threat. Deciding to ere on the side of caution, everyone quickly made their way to follow her lead.

 **...**

 **Normandy**

"I'm telling you Chakwas, she went absolutely mental when that Thresher Maw ambushed us." Ben remarked worriedly as the good doctor continued her examination calmly, carefully cataloging every unique feature of his biology, as she had been for the last several visits he'd made to her office to help her better understand how to treat him in a medical sense. "I've only worked with her a few days, and I can already tell that she's made of sterner stuff than that. I know she had a bad run-in with them early in her career, but for just the sight of one of them to mess her up that badly..." He shook his head, not knowing what to think.

"PTSD has a way of resurfacing at the oddest of times." Dr. Chakwas shook her head calmly, no stranger to this subject matter. "Pyronite DNA, please?" She requested as she pulled out an industrial temperature gauge and chisel, taking the appropriate samples once Ben changed his right arm to the requested DNA. "It doesn't matter how long someone has been in service, or how many other horrific things they've seen and become desensitized to, if the mind is already properly stressed - or even when it isn't - then the slightest, or even most unusual trigger can set them off."

"Maybe, but I still can't help but worry." Ben remarked as he shifted his arm back. "Is there anything I can do to help her?"

"The mind is a very unusual and complicated thing." Dr. Chakwas explained as she placed the small, smoldering ember she'd broken off of Ben's arm under an electronic microscope and began studying it. "Even in this day and age of space travel and other scientific marvels, the science of the brain and the mind it contains is still not fully understood. One of the few things we're almost certain of is that about eighty to ninety percent of the human personality is based on just a small handful personal memories. A dozen or so moments in our lives that stood out to us on some level as being of vital importance, that together almost entirely define us as people. I may not know exactly what Shepard's most defining memories are, or even how exactly they defined her, but I can hazard a guess at three of them at least."

"Thresher Maw, The Skylian Blitz, and Torfan." Ben filled in the blanks, the shapeshifter already familiar enough with her service history to make the same guess Dr. Chakwas did. "So you're saying that anything that reminds her of those three events could set her off in some way?"

"Yes and no." Dr. Chawkas answered ambivalently as she took notes on the fascinating things she was witnessing in the sample she'd taken. "Shepard is a strong woman, more so than most, but she's still human. What you saw on your last visit planetside was probably an isolated event, unlikely to occur again, even if you end up facing more Thresher Maws in the future. Still, those core, defining memories that make up the human personality trigger strong emotional responses whenever they're forced to the surface, be it for good or for ill. I'll keep an eye on her for now, you just focus on your plans for stopping Saren and improving the galaxy."

"Maybe..." Ben reluctantly accepted the suggestion. "I still wish there was something I could do help her feel better."

"Actually, there is something you can do." Jane sighed tiredly as she and Tali walked into the Med Bay, nodding to Dr. Chakwas in acknowledgement as they did so. "Karin, I hope you haven't been gossiping about me behind my back."

"Nothing that would violate Doctor/Patient confidentiality." Karin grinned knowingly, already with a hunch as to what Shepard and Tali had come here for. Her hunch only got stronger when Tali strolled up and plopped herself down on Ben's lap, lazily draping her arms over his shoulders while he placed his hands on her bodacious booty. "Feel free to get comfortable, this office is kept sterile at all times." She chuckled fondly at the young couple.

"Not for long." Ben whispered in Tali's 'ear', eliciting a playful giggle from his girlfriend.

"Cut it out." Tali chided him sheepishly. "I came in here to have a serious moment with you, and you're making it very difficult to do that."

"You're the one who straddled him without so much as a hello." Jane joked as she sat down next to the couple. "Seriously, you two are like a pair of lovestruck teenagers."

"You're just jealous." Tali responded playfully, grateful for her earlier rehearsal with Jane, as Ben's wandering hands were making it very hard to stick to the script.

"Yeah, I am jealous." Shepard responded, stunning Ben out of cuddling with his girlfriend at her point blank admission. "It's hard not to be when you two are making goo-goo eyes and playing grabass when I'm right here in the room." She glared sternly.

"Sorry Jane, I guess I just get carried away around Tali." Ben admitted nervously as he tried to push Tali off him, only for her to cling to him that much closer and tighter. "I promise we'll try to keep it saved for more private moments."

"I don't want it to be private." Tali chuckled eagerly as she pinned him down to the bed. "I want her to watch."

"Karin, Jane, a little help here?!" Ben panicked slightly as Tali grabbed his ass, his Quarian lover more bold and assertive than he'd ever seen her, and despite not dating her for long, he knew she was pretty damn bold. "I think Tali might be sick or something. Could you get her off me and check her suit for leaks?

"There are no leaks in my suit, Ben." Tali whispered in his ear, surprising him with how much clearer than normal her voice sounded. Just as he was about to question her sudden shift in attitude, he felt a pair of lips trailing along his neck.

"Tali! Your mask!" Ben panicked as he immediately activated his Fourarms DNA, pushed himself up, Tali off him, and began frantically searching for the curved pane of one-way glass that protected her from a potentially fatal infection.

"Ben, look at me for a second." Tali guided him gently as she pulled his head in her direction, leaving him absolutely breathless at what he saw before his eyes. He had thought Tali was beautiful before, back when he could only see her figure, and get to know her personality. The depths of her passion for ships and other technology, her infectious good cheer and bubbliness, the cute way she would shuffle her hands whenever something made her nervous, and her absolute loyalty to the safety and future of her people. Seeing her face however...

"Quasar has been tampering with the settings on my suit, making it tax my immune system to build it up." Tali began as she pulled her hood down, revealing her long, dark hair, and allowing it to cascade down over the sides of her elegant face. Her lavender skin reminding Ben of the flowers that shared the name of the color, and her faintly glowing yellow eyes reminding him of stars in the night sky. "I've been taking herbal supplements, to quicken the process, and heighten the effects." As she spoke, Ben's eyes were drawn to her lips, so soft looking but not too full. His gaze rose up the bridge of her nose, which extended slightly farther, and was slightly narrower than any human nose he'd ever seen, except maybe on artist's interpretations of Cleopatra. Hell, even the lines of black skin arching over her nonexistent eyebrows were like an ancient Egyptian painting. "It will still be at least a year before my immune system is strong enough to do all the things I want to do with you, and even then it will still need to be in a controlled environment like this one, but this..." She said before she kissed him deeply, her tongue exploring his mouth, and his exploring hers for a few tender moments before she had to pull away all too soon, fixing her mask back into place in one quick, smooth motion. "-Will more than hold me over until then."

"...I love you, Tali." Ben grinned like an idiot, causing his lover to giggle with glee.

"And I love you too, Ben." Tali returned the grin from behind her mask.

"And so do I." Jane grinned hungrily as she tackled Ben down to the bed. "Thanks again for agreeing to share, Tali."

"Share!? Tali, what is she talking about?!" Ben panicked as Jane unfastened her armor, and began to do the same to his.

"Please don't fight it, Ben." Tali pleaded sheepishly, even as she watched eagerly. "We talked it over and...well, we live in some very...progressive times...this isn't weird at all."

"She's got a point, you know." Jane smirked at Ben like a lioness at her prey. "An ambassador from another galaxy serving with a military unit instead of talking politics. The Council having talks about giving AIs full rights as citizens. A polygamous relationship is nothing but standard fare at this point."

Pausing in shock as he tried to fully absorb what Jane and Tali were saying, Ben glanced at his Quarian lover, who eagerly nodded her approval, then at Jane, who had gotten his top off and was trailing kisses along his collar, and finally at Dr. Chakwas, who had her notepad at the ready.

"Please don't mind my observations." Dr. Chakwas teased playfully. "I'm a doctor, whatever happens here I'm sure I've seen it before. And if I haven't...well, that's what the notes are for."

After thinking about everything going on for several moments, Ben decided...to stop thinking about it. After all, his smoking hot alien girlfriend just gave her enthusiastic approval of having him cheat on her with an almost equally smoking hot space commando. Before he was a hero, Ben was a man, and there are some things a man just doesn't say no to.

 **Author's Notes: Preempting any obvious reviews I can think of, and responding to the ones I've already had, I have a few things to say here. First, I'm aware that the romance is moving quite a bit faster than in Mass Effect 'canon' and that the polygamy angle seems even more sudden. However, what you have to understand is that when you promise people a harem story, the harem has to get started relatively early in the story, or else you risk losing your target audience. That's how it works in manga, and I see no reason why the same shouldn't apply here. Also, Ben is making some major waves very quickly, and people tend to be impressed by heroes and leaders that can get shit done, especially if it means bulldozing over obstructive bureaucrats. Second, Tali is a perv who fantasizes of threesomes. I don't think any real fan of Mass Effect - especially those familiar with the Party on the Citadel in Mass Effect 3 - needs to be told of this fact. Third, Ben is a known flirt, and he has made passes at other women despite already being in another relationship. The same can be said about any Shepard, who can easily be made to flirt with multiple romantic interests during the same playthrough. This is just a semi-natural extension of that.**

 **Enough of all those explanation however, I have a quick question for all you reviewers out there. Do you want me to make a separate story for the lemon scenes that I won't be including in the main story, or should I just focus all my efforts on the main story, and let the sex be implied? Either way, next chapter we FINALLY get to the part of the story you've all been waiting for: The Liara Recruitment Mission! Stay Tuned!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Please offer constructive criticism in all reviews, not just a pat on the back and a "Good Job". Not to say I won't happily accept a pat on the back and a "Good Job", but a little more substance is appreciated. Also, once again I must remind you all that I do not accept anonymous reviews. They are disregarded and deleted without distinction.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 8

First Objective - Dr. Liara T'Soni

 **Normandy Helm**

"I hate you so much right now, Ben." Joker huffed bitterly the moment Ben walked up to say hi.

"What the hell did I do?" Ben questioned curiously, not knowing what could have set off the pilot against him.

"You think I didn't see the security footage of Commander Shepard all over you?" Joker retorted, causing Ben to recoil with a wince. "What's wrong? Couldn't get what you wanted from a Quarian because of the suit, so you go after the next best thing?"

"It wasn't like that at all!" Ben insisted defensively, not wanting the funniest guy on the Normandy to get a bad impression of him. "Look, this whole thing just got sprung on me all of a sudden, and I'm only human, and-" He stopped when he noticed Joker was chuckling, before breaking out into full blown laughter.

"You think I didn't already know Tali and Shepard were having a cold catfight over you?" Joker chuckled as he turned his seat around to face Ben, his expression an ear-to-ear grin that bore a close resemblance to his namesake. "Dude, I'm not really angry with you. I'm just giving you a hard time because you're living my dream. Two smoking hot babes fighting over you? C'mon, I have to mess with you at least a little over that. Seriously, if I wasn't worried about some random chick breaking my legs, I'd make a pass at about half the women on this ship, to say nothing of all the many lovely ladies off of it. You can do what you want, hang with whoever, and say what you want just so long as Tali's okay with it. Other than that, it's none of my business how you live your life."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that, Joker?" Ben scoffed playfully, the snarky pilot giving a suspiciously innocent _'Who, me?'_ shrug in response. "Still, I didn't know they had cameras in the infirmary." He made a note of that for later.

"They don't." Joker replied calmly, causing Ben to freeze. "I just noticed Shepard acting all weird and tense around you and Tali, so I took a shot in the dark and guessed that she made a pass at you. Glad to see I was right, otherwise that'd be some serious egg on my face."

"You just guessed?" Ben checked nervously, getting an affirmative nod from Joker before he turned back to manning the helm. "You mean you don't actually..." He hesitated, wondering whether or not he should take the out he'd just been handed.

"Don't actually what?" Joker half-turned to Ben in genuine ignorance. Just as Ben was about to seize his chance and politely excuse himself, Wrex walked into the room and gave him a too firm pat on the shoulder.

"I knew I smelled the scent of victory in here!" The old Krogan guffawed as he grabbed Ben in a half-nelson. "Don't think I can't smell a successful mating on you just because we're different species. Glad to see you, Shepard, and Tali managed to work things out the best way possible." Ben managed to squeeze out of the headlock and tried to use his Fourarms DNA to push Wrex out before Joker caught on to what he was implying. Unfortunately, Wrex was too rooted to his spot to be budged more than a few inches. "Ah, reminds me of those two females from the same clutch who propositioned me together when I killed a Thresher Maw during my Rite of Passage. Good times, good times." He sighed in wistful recollection, giving both Ben and Joker a mental image they were FAR better off without.

 **Normandy Shepard's Office - Same Time**

Jane was whistling a happy tune to herself as she finished typing up her latest status report. Despite finding evidence of a conspiracy to lure hapless victims into a Thresher Maw nest on her most recent Assignment, her time spent with Ben afterwards kept her too content to give the incident much thought beyond her job at the moment.

 **"WHAT THE FUCK, BEN!?"** Joker's voice snapped Shepard out of her reverie.

"And now the whole ship is going to know." Shepard sighed in resignation, knowing that only one thing could have prompted such a loud response from her pervy and sarcastic pilot that she could hear him in her office while he was shouting from the helm. "I thought I told him to keep this quiet?!" She hissed as she prepared to chew him out for his big mouth.

"Greetings, Commander Shepard." Quasar addressed her as his avatar popped up on her computer monitor. "Ben asked me to, and I quote _'Tell Jane that Wrex's nose blew the secret, not me.'_ End quote. He then proceeded to laugh to himself about making an unintentional pun about voluntary mucus expulsion."

"...Tell Ben I understand the circumstances." Jane sighed as she began mentally preparing herself for the inevitable teasing she'd be getting from the rest of the ground team on their next Mission, which just so happened to be one of the three main objectives they'd set out to accomplish in their search for Saren. "Also let him know that we'll be making landfall in five."

"Acknowledged Commander." Quasar responded before vanishing from Shepard's terminal, leaving the Commander alone to suit up.

"This mission just got a whole lot more complicated." Jane sighed for the nth time since meeting her new lover.

 **Therum - Later**

The drop off in the Mako was even more bumpy than any other planet they'd landed on since they started using it, the terrain much less even than any landing zone they'd used before. Still, Shepard was forced out of the driver's seat - despite her protests - and Ben made sure to make the landing as smooth as he could given the circumstances. Once they'd arrived, it wasn't long before Joker's voice came through their comms.

"Commander, I'm picking up some strange readings." Joker reported, a slight tinge of worry in his voice as the Mako passed a few sealed bulkheads and above ground pipes. "Really strange, like off the damn charts. It looks like it's coming from an underground complex a few clicks away from the dropzone."

"Copy that Joker, we'll start our search for Dr. T'Soni there, over." Ben responded as he nervously glanced out the window at a lake of molten lava, making sure to give the red hot rocks a wide breadth.

"Don't talk to me right now Ben, I'm still pissed off at you." Joker sulked before the transmission cut off.

"What the hell was that about?" Kaidan asked curiously.

"Don't ask." Ben, Shepard, and Tali all responded in unison, their collective tone leaving no room for discussion.

"Your loss." Wrex shrugged dismissively. "If it were me, I'd be bragging right now."

"One of these days, you're gonna wish you'd kept your big mouth shut, Wrex." Shepard grunted as Ben suddenly swerved the Mako around a corner, jostling Wrex uncomfortably in his ill-fitting seat. "Like right now for instance." She smirked vindictively.

"You're just jealous that Ben's not just a better driver then you, but a better bad driver too." Wrex retorted, wanting to have the last word, only for Ben to floor the throttle and send Wrex falling up in his seat. "You know what? Forget I said anything!" He huffed, wisely deciding to quit while he still had a full quad.

After that brief verbal altercation, the ride was blissfully silent until the squad heard the roaring of ship engines, and turned their attention skyward, where they saw a Geth dropship descending in front of them. Garrus managed to get a few shots in on the ship itself before it dropped a pair of Geth Armatures and flew off.

"Ben, give me the wheel!" Shepard began barking orders, the hero immediately doing as commanded despite the many reasons not to. "You and Tali get out there and try to hack and smash those Geth for any intel you can find! Garrus, give them cover fire! Everyone else is on standby!" Nobody wasted a second falling into their assigned roles. Ben grew Stinkfly wings and Fourarms arms to carry Tali to the Geth quickly, while Garrus managed to keep a steady rate of fire up despite Shepard's chaotic driving. Despite the distance between the Mako and the Geth being over 150 meters, Garrus managed to get a few good shots in while Ben and Tali quickly arrived at their destination. Between Tali's hacks and shotgun, Garrus's turret, Shepard's driving, and Ben's prodigious application of pure brute force, both Armatures were destroyed in just as many minutes. "Nicely done team. Tali, did you get anything useful?" Shepard asked once Ben and Tali were back in the Mako.

"Maybe if you let Ben have the wheel back our ride would be smooth enough for me to examine this data properly." Tali protested as Shepard rounded a ridge and zoomed across a path wedged between two pools of lava. "Also, maybe we shouldn't try to knock down the front door!" She shouted as she pointed at the fortified barricade they were approaching. "Try looking for a side window!"

"Or I could just shoot down those turrets and save us the trouble." Garrus boasted as his keen eye and quick trigger finger made short work of all three mounted turrets, the Mako barely getting a scratch even as Shepard shot forward without hesitation and swerved off to the right down a narrow turnoff. "And that's how you take down multiple armored targets from an out of control vehicle." He boasted even as he spotted another turret barring their new path, making short work of that one as well.

"Is it wrong that I kinda wanna punch Garrus right now?" Ashley asked sarcastically.

"Hard to say for sure." Kaidan responded as the boastful Turian managed to spot and snipe an explosive material next to a Geth Armature, weakening it for a finishing blow. "He's cocky, but he really is that good."

"I say, pull this heap of junk over just short of that outpost." Wrex grunted as he tapped Shepard on the shoulder, the Commander complying with his request. "I'll show you all how a real badass kills stuff." Having said his piece, Wrex was the first of the crew to jump out of the Mako and charge onto the battlefield, giving no quarter to the Geth with his shotgun blazing.

"Leave at least some of them intact, Wrex!" Tali called out as she and Ben followed close behind him, taking cover behind Wrex's barrier as she tried to remotely hack a few nearby Geth. "Any data I can get from them could benefit the Fleet!"

"I'll give you some easier targets!" Ben grinned as he activated his Wildvine and Bloxx DNA in unison, firing off seed pods that quickly wrapped several Geth in massive vines, letting Tali hack them while Ashley and Kaidan charged in and gunned them down.

Unfortunately, Wrex's biotic barrier decided to run out of energy at that very moment, forcing the squad to take cover behind a large shipping crate. Fortunately, Garrus and Shepard finally arrived once everyone was well covered, both of them using sniper rifles to pick off the last of the Geth, with Shepard herself making the best shot by blowing up a canister surrounded by three unprepared Geth.

"All targets down." Garrus declared as the squad got up from their cover, making their way further into the clearing on foot.

"Fan out everybody!" Shepard commanded with her trademark air of authority. "I want a grid search of this whole clearing! Look for a way to open these barricades, and see if there's any leads on Dr. T'Soni, or resources we can use!"

"And now we're being ordered to indulge Commander Shepard's hoarder tendencies." Ben quipped as he and Tali went to search a nearby gatehouse, one of his girlfriends laughing at his joke, while the other sulked at it. "What's next? Is she gonna try to fly the Normandy now too?"

"I would sooner have a kickboxing match with the entire crew than let the Commander anywhere near the controls of my baby!" Joker protested adamantly over their comms, getting a laugh from everyone. All except for Shepard, who just flipped off the sky in response.

In the end, the crew managed to loot a handful of weapons and upgrades from a few crates and lockers, as well as take out a few remaining Geth Shock Troopers, before they finally found the controls to the gate. After piling the looted weapons into the cargo hold of the Mako, and piling the squad into the Mako itself - with Ben using Fourarms DNA to drag a furious Shepard out of the driver's seat - they drove through the now opened gate that led them forward. The drive itself was simple enough based on what they'd encountered thus far - about a dozen or so Geth of various sizes and designs - until Tali spotted something in the distance, and forced Ben to stop.

"Colossus!" Tali panicked as she pointed towards a massive, quadrupedal Geth standing guard in front of a tunnel. "Those things are no joke, Ben. They don't make Geth bigger or tougher than these things."

"Is that so?" Ben grinned eagerly as he revved up the engine, sowing a mixture of fear and anticipation in the rest of the squad. "Shepard, take the wheel." He instructed, making the mixed emotions the squad felt before not primarily fear. "Quasar, get ready for a massive download." His AI companion nodded affirmative. "Tali, you're with me." He said as he grabbed the Quarian bridal style and popped open the door.

"Oh, Keelah se'lai!" Tali sighed in relief as Ben sprouted Stinkfly wings and flew off towards the Geth. "Between Shepard's driving and a Geth Colossus, I'll take the Geth any day."

"I heard that!" Shepard shouted after them as the Mako shot forward, coming up to the Geth barely half as fast as Ben could fly.

As Ben and Tali approached the massive Geth, they got an eyeful of how truly oversized it was, the monstrous machine dwarfing even the Mako. Swerving out of the way of its shots, Ben managed to land on its back, putting them out of the line of fire. Wasting no time, Ben activated both his Fourarms and Feedback DNA, ripping a panel off of the Geth before plugging half his fingers into its circuits, while plugging the other half into Tali's Omni-tool. With Quasar acting as a filter for information and energy, a mountain of data was stolen before the Geth realized that it was being hacked. Once it realized that it was facing an enemy the likes of which the Geth have never known before, it did the only thing it could think of to prevent such a threatening enemy from gaining access to any potentially damaging intel. It fried its systems, while simultaneously transmitting all the intel it had gathered from its comrades conflict with the enemy back to the rest of its kind, leaving behind nothing but a sparking, inactive Colossus. As it fell to the ground, so too were Ben and Tali thrown from its back. Thinking quickly, Ben wrapped Tali up in all four of his arms and rolled into the fall to cushion the blow.

"Well that was...something." Ben noted once they had stopped tumbling, deactivating all three of his active DNAs as he did so. He tried to get up, but ended up dropping to his hands and knees in exhaustion, gasping for air as he did so.

"Ben!" Tali panicked worriedly as she scrambled up herself and helped him get to his feet. "Are you alright?"

"I'll live..." Ben panted as the Mako pulled up to their location. "But I don't think I'm ever gonna use more than two DNA samples at a time from now on."

"That's probably for the best." Tali agreed as she propped him up against his shoulder, the duo uneasily walking up to get back in the Mako. "Still, I didn't expect a simple energy and data drain to do so much damage to a Colossus of all things." She remarked curiously, Kaidan pulling Ben up to the Mako's door, while Tali pushed from behind - copping a feel as she did so - before Tali jumped in herself, and secured Ben in his seat before doing the same in her own.

"I don't think that's what did it." Quasar slurred slightly, the whole experience apparently somewhat draining on the helpful AI too. "I think the Geth are getting wise to our attempts to loot data caches from them. We probably will not be able to use that method of data extraction again."

"Just as well I suppose." Shepard remarked in mild concern as she drove the Mako surprisingly smoothly through the man-made tunnel. "As useful as data on the Geth and their plans with Saren and the Reapers may be, I don't like risking my squad getting too close to those things."

"Speaking of their plans, I managed to gather up a few communication logs while I was hacking them." Tali reported helpfully. "The audio is too scrambled to play, but the text is still legible."

"What does it say?" Ashley inquired immediately, wanting any edge they could get.

"Not very much, admittedly." Tali sighed in frustration. "All I can gather from these caches of data without a more thorough examination is that they arrived here not long ago, attacked the research teams at this site, and tried to capture Dr. T'Soni, but she got away."

"So it looks like Dr. T'Soni isn't working with her mother and Saren then." Shepard summarized the most important part. "As a grim bonus, this attack should give her ample reason to help us find them for a little payback, and maybe even help me make sense of this vision the Prothean Beacon beamed into my head back on Eden Prime." She grunted as she massaged her left temple, not even stopping to acknowledge the Geth troops guarding the end of the tunnel that she ran over after Garrus softened them up. "Huh, Geth make pretty good speed bumps." She noted idly as she drove onward, going up a steep hill and zooming into another tunnel without a second thought. "Eyes on the road, Garrus." She instructed the Turian as they approached a few more Geth troopers in the tunnel.

"Isn't that something we should be saying to our fearless driver?" Garrus protested sarcastically as he gunned down the Geth with ease, their shots only doing superficial damage to the Mako.

"Less talking, more shooting." Wrex deadpanned as they exited the tunnel, and encountered another Geth blockade. "Shepard driving on-road is mildly less painful on my tail and quad than Shepard driving off-road, and I wanna enjoy the moment while it lasts without a lippy Turian squaking in my ear." Once the Geth were all destroyed, Shepard zoomed forward, back onto the unforgiving rocky surface. "And the moment is gone."

"Much as I love driving the Mako..." Shepard sighed as she pulled up to a much better fortified blockade, one which had no room for the Mako to squeeze through. "It looks like we're on foot from here on out."

"Thank the Spirits!" Garrus gasped in relief as he and everyone else began piling out of the Mako, Ben going last due to still being winded from his confrontation with the Colossus, with Shepard and Tali helping him down.

"You sure you're still up for the rest of the mission?" Kaidan asked Ben neutrally. "After that stunt you pulled with the Colossus back there, no one would blame you for staying behind with the Mako."

"Thanks for the offer, but I can't let you guys have all the fun." Ben retorted, still panting slightly, but good to go otherwise. "Besides, didn't you know? Heroes always rescue damsels in distress."

"Think we should be worried?" Tali stage-whispered to Shepard, making sure Ben could hear.

"Depends on what this Dr. T'Soni is like." Shepard stage-whispered back mischievously. "I've always wanted to do it with an Asari, and if she has a winning personality, who am I, as a newly converted polygamist to say no?" She chuckled darkly, sending a chill of regret and shameful anticipation up both Ben and Tali's spines, while Wrex just burst out laughing without a care as the squad marched onward.

It didn't take them long to encounter resistance from the Geth, though it was relatively minor and easy until they came across a Geth in a sniper nest. Even so, it didn't take Garrus more than a few well placed shots to remedy that problem. The rocket launchers and energy barricades were a bit difficult to deal with as well, at least until Ashley chucked a few well-placed grenades with pinpoint accuracy before finishing the now shield-less Geth with her assault rifle. Despite spending most of the shootout stuck struggling for cover in a bottleneck, the squad managed to finish off all the Geth with only moderate difficulty.

"On your right." Garrus casually remarked as he scoped and dropped one final Geth sniper that was perched on a distant alcove. "And that brings my kill count for the day up to twenty-seven." He boasted.

"Only if you count the ones you killed with the turret." Wrex protested semi-jokingly. "Take those away, how many are really yours?"

"Seventeen." Garrus easily responded, eliciting a much needed pity laugh from the rest of the squad. "Why do I get the sneaking suspicious you're laughing at me, not with me?" He huffed playfully.

"Alright, that's enough banter for now." Shepard ordered her squad as she holstered her weapon before pointing up the hill. "Looks like we've got a clear path to our objective now, but stay on your guard as we advance." Not needing to be told twice what to do, everyone began marching up the hill. Ben lagged behind only for a few seconds to catch his breath halfway up, but other than that there were no other obstacles until they got to the Prothean Ruins. When they arrived there however, a Geth dropped down from a scaffolding before quickly crawling back up another one to conceal itself. Before anyone could try and take it out however, a Geth dropship swooped in overhead, dropping off several shock troopers and an Armature. "Take cover!" Shepard shouted, not that she needed to, as the whole squad was already doing so.

"These Geth are more stubborn than Techadon robots!" Ben growled as he activated his Echo-Echo and Bloxx DNA, taking careful aim at a sheet of metal a Geth was using as cover, before blasting at half power, the sonic vibrations echoing through the metal sheet and shaking the Geth behind it to pieces in a matter of seconds.

"I'd ask you what you're talking about, but this clearly isn't the time." Garrus remarked as he took out an enemy sniper. "I'll just add it to the list."

"What list?" Ben asked curiously as he switched to Armodrillo DNA, his ammo pack changing into some kind of yellow-colored, armored, organic engine with rapidly pumping pistons, the ammo belt completely gone, and his arm looking no different from his usual Armodrillo arm. "I wonder what the deal with this combo is?" He muttered curiously as he took aim at the Armature's center of mass. His previous experience with massive recoil still relatively fresh, he firmly planted his feet and grabbed onto his cover with his free hand before firing. This turned out to be a wise decision, as even with the added support, he was still nearly sent flying as the piston in his arm made a single quick pump, followed immediately by the drill that replaced his hand launching itself at the Armature, tearing through its shields, armor, and through half the length of its body before stopping. Needless to say, the Armature quickly dropped dead due to the catastrophic damage, while Ben nearly blacked out from the strain of being forced back to his basic form.

"Yeah, that one definitely took a lot out of me." He winced as he pulled himself up, taking note of the empty - and very, _very_ slowly charging - Armodrillo icon on his HUD. "Looks like I can't use that one more than once a mission."

"Doubt you'll need it more than that often." Wrex grinned appreciatively at the wrecked Geth Armature. "Now that's a thing of beauty."

"It certainly is." Tali giggled with delight as she latched onto her lover's arm like a lovesick schoolgirl. "I know we're trying to make peace with the Geth, but I still can't help feeling giddy whenever you brutally wreck the Geth we don't want to make peace with."

"Well, that's the last of them." Shepard sighed as she dragged one of the strange, new types of Geth that had scaled the walls earlier, dropping it at Tali's feet. "I don't recognize this model of Geth from any of our data on them. Any ideas, Tali?"

"...This is well beyond what we designed the Geth to be, Shepard." Tali replied with dread as Ben scanned the deactivated Geth. "Not just physically, but the motions they make as well. Synthetic muscle fibers, cloaking technology, advanced hacking devices, optic laser emitters...Keelah, is this what I think it is?!" Her voice rose in a panic.

"What is it?!" Shepard demanded tensely.

"It's not gonna blow up, is it?" Kaidan inquired as he backed up.

"It's worse than that." Tali cried softly as she held her head in her hands. "These bodies aren't just sophisticated machines. It's like someone flash-fossilized a bipedal sentient, only instead of sedimentary rock they used nano-machines, and then the whole thing had Geth parts, programs, and all sorts of other tech I barely recognize surgically added to the frame."

"Translation for those of us who don't speak nerd." Wrex requested bluntly.

"These Geth are made from modified Husks!" Shepard hissed, the engineer in her both disgusted and reluctantly impressed by their design. "As if I needed another reason to hate the Reapers!" She holstered her weapon a little more forcefully than she normally did, making a mental note to run a full weapon and armor diagnostic once the mission was done as she did so. "Let's get inside these Prothean ruins and find Dr. T'Soni before I get too angry and decide to break something I probably shouldn't." She hissed as she ushered the team up a nearby ramp and into the dig site.

 **...**

 **Prothean Ruins**

A good chunk of the spelunking into the ruins was a blur to Ben. Not only was he still a little tired from how much he'd been fighting on the mission, but archaeology was never really his primary field of interest, so he didn't bother paying much attention as he lagged slightly behind the rest of the squad. Even during the few gunfights with Geth and the surprisingly quiet elevator rides - aside from the one that broke down just shy of the bottom floor - he didn't pay much attention.

The blue lady trapped in a bubble however, wasn't something he was ever going to forget.

"Can you hear me out there?!" Dr. T'Soni - for that was who the trapped Asari was - called out as she remained suspended in the bubble. "I'm trapped! I need help!"

"Are you okay? What happened to you?" Shepard addressed the Asari calmly, a standard scripted response for anyone trapped and/or potentially hurt.

"Listen, this thing I'm in is a Prothean security device." Dr. T'Soni responded quickly, trying her best to remain calm. "I cannot move so...I need you to get me out of it, alright?" She panted slightly, obviously strained or tired by...whatever it was she was doing in there.

"How did you end up in there?" Ben stepped in when he noticed Ashley look like she was about to make a snide remark. No offense to the woman, but she was way too suspicious of anyone who wasn't human. She wasn't outright racist, but she'd probably never live in a heavily inter-species neighborhood.

"I was exploring the ruins when the Geth showed up, so I hid in here." Dr. T'Soni explained. "Can you believe that? Geth! Beyond the Veil!"

"She must not get out much." Tali whispered sarcastically to Ben, the hero nodding in agreement.

"I activated the tower's defenses, I knew the barrier grids would keep them out." The Doctor continued before she looked down sheepishly. "When I turned them on, I must have hit something I wasn't supposed to. I was trapped in here! You must get me out, please!" She panicked as her breath began to hitch slightly.

"We'll find some way to help you." Shepard assured her firmly. "Any idea where we should start looking?"

"There is a control in here that should deactivate this thing." Dr. T'Soni offered helpfully. "You'll have to find some way past the barrier grid. That's the tricky part." That was less helpful however. "The defenses cannot be shut off from the outside. I don't know how you'll get in here. Be careful." She warned them with all seriousness. "There is a Krogan with the Geth. They have been trying different ways to get past the barrier."

Ben stepped back a bit to take a better look at the barrier and the walls around it. From what he could see, there were many openings up and down in this tower, each of them protected by a barrier. No doubt Dr. T'Soni had turned them all on to prevent the Geth from taking a roundabout path, but that precaution was now working against them. When he looked down in frustration however, a bit of inspiration hit him when he compared the scaffolding they were standing on to the barrier.

"Uh-oh." Tali snickered deviously. "I know that look of yours."

"What look are you talking about?" Ben asked coyly, playing the innocent card even as he turned around and looked down the side of the railings, using his scanner on the ground as he did so.

"Don't act like you don't already know." Tali shot back just as coyly. "We may have only started dating a few days ago, but I've already seen that look in your eye too many times for comfort. You've got a crazy stupid plan to get us through that's going to leave me torn between smooching you and smacking you. Oh Keelah, I just realized that you're one of those 'bad boys' my auntie Raan always warned me about, aren't you?"

Hearing the phrase 'bad boy' reminded Ben of his arch-enemy turned best-friend Kevin Levin. By itself, the reminder would just make him a little homesick, but being called a bad boy - and thus being compared to said ex-arch-enemy - made him visibly shudder. "Please don't ever call me that again." He pleaded sarcastically. Noticing that his Armodrillo DNA was still quite far from a full recharge, he activated his Fourarms DNA instead. "But you're right about me having a crazy stupid plan." He grinned playfully. Ignoring Dr. T'Soni as she gasped 'By the Goddess' at the sight of his sudden shapeshifting, Ben vaulted over the railing and slammed his arms into the ground, breaking through to another floor below.

"And of course the Geth choose now to attack." Garrus quipped as the mechanical enemies started emerging from cover, the squad quickly getting into the optimal positions to retaliate in response. "Why is it that every time Ben rushes on ahead, the rest of us get stuck on clean-up?" He complained sarcastically as he emptied a few rounds into a Geth's head. Suddenly, a boulder flew out of the hole Ben created, and landed on another, much larger Geth than the one Garrus shot down, crushing it with no resistance.

"You were saying, Garrus?" Kaidan nudged the slack-jawed Turian playfully.

"Why do I keep trying to one-up, Ben?" Garrus sighed as the last Geth in sight hit the cave floor, the squad moving on down the hole Ben had made. "It's not like I'll ever get the last word or kill in against him."

"Don't beat yourself up there, Garrus." Ben reassured him with a friendly pat on the back once the whole squad was in the hole, the path in front of them unblocked by the barrier that covered all those upper floors. "I'm nowhere near as good as you are when it comes to those long shots. Seriously, how good is your eyesight anyway?"

"Top sniper in my class." Garrus boasted, his ego successfully boosted back to normal.

"All complaints and compliments aside Ben, how did you know that this barrier would be down?" Shepard cut into the conversation as the squad marched forward through the blue-tiled passage.

"I didn't." Ben shrugged sheepishly. "I just figured that, since these ruins were tough enough to survive for 50,000 years of mother nature doing her thing, they'd be tough enough to stay in place while I smashed a hole underneath it." He chuckled as they arrived at a control panel for a large elevator, Shepard activating it as she shook her head, trying her best not to share in his all too contagious mirth.

"Well, whatever the reason, it looks like it worked." Shepard accepted his explanation as the elevator went up, travelling only a short distance before they arrived at the area just behind where Dr. T'Soni had been trapped. "And here we are." She smiled as the squad turned around and approached the trapped scientist.

"How...how did you get in here?" The good doctor asked in shock as she turned her head to face them. "I didn't thin there was any way past the barrier! And what was that...that thing that human did with his arms back there?!" She struggled to focus her gaze on Ben specifically.

"Explanations can wait until after we get you away from the Geth." Tali replied calmly as she and Ben began scanning the tech around them curiously, looking for anything potentially useful.

"Yes, you're right." Dr. T'Soni consented easily. "I've seen enough of them to last a lifetime." She glanced at a nearby device. "That button should shut down my containment field." Not needing any further invitation than that, Shepard activated the interface on the device and pressed the button, disabling the field and letting the Asari drop to her hands and knees, where she quickly got up and dusted herself off.

"Any idea where we could find an exit?" Ben asked curiously. "We'd go back the way we came, but I'm pretty sure one of the elevators is busted."

"There is an elevator back in the center of the tower." Dr. T'Soni responded, even as she found herself staring at Ben a bit longer than she meant too. "...At least I...I think it's an elevator." She hesitated uncertainly before steeling her nerves again. "It should take us out of here, come on." When the squad, plus Dr. T'Soni, reached the center of the platform, the Asari spoke again. "I...I still cannot believe all this." She uttered in confusion. "Why would the Geth come after me? Who...or what, are you?" She gestured at Ben.

"Saren is looking for some Prothean artifact called 'The Conduit'." Shepard answered ruefully, knowing that what she was able to tell the poor Asari could scar her for a while. "Your mother, Benezia, is working with him. You're a Prothean expert, obviously they want you to help them find it."

"My mother..." Dr. T'Soni gasped in stunned silence as she tried to process all this sudden information. "'The Conduit'...but I don't know-" She stopped talking suddenly as she looked around, as if looking for something only she could see. Suddenly, a series of small but growing explosions caught everyone's attention.

"What the hell was that?" Wrex asked of everyone and no one.

"There ruins are unstable." Dr. T'Soni answered nervously as rocks continued to shift. "When you broke through the bedrock, it must have triggered a seismic event."

"Would it help if I said I was sorry?" Ben chuckled nervously, even as Dr. T'Soni began operating the console that controlled the elevator.

"We have to hurry. The whole place is caving in." Dr. T'Soni explained, doing her best to stay calm.

"Joker!" Shepard barked over her comms. "Get the Normandy airborne and lock in on my signal! On the double mister!"

"Aye-aye Commander! Secure and away!" Joker responded curtly. "ETA, 8 minutes."

"Gonna be close, Skipper." Ashley muttered as the elevator began rising, her tone only slightly nervous.

"Not much margin for error." Kaidan seconded.

"He needs to go faster!" Tali half-shouted, a seeping creep of panic noticeable in her voice.

"If I die in here, I'll kill him." Wrex grunted in disinterest.

Barely a minute after the elevator began going up, it reached the top floor, the sides of the platform extending and folding around them to get rid of any openings in the floor. Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones who chose that exact moment to arrive at the top floor. A squad of Geth, with a Krogan at the front of the pack, marched into the room through the only passage to the outside.

"Surrender...or don't, I could use the fun." The Krogan grunted blithely.

"In case you didn't notice, this place is falling apart." Shepard glared darkly at the Krogan obstructing their path.

"Exhilarating, isn't it?" The enemy Krogan hissed evilly as he marched forward. "Thanks for getting rid of those energy fields for us. Hand the Doctor over."

"Whatever it is you want, you're not getting it from me!" Dr. T'Soni stood her ground firmly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but negotiations clearly aren't going to work here." Ben sighed tiredly as he activated his Diamondhead and Bloxx DNA in unison. "Let's just kill these guys and get going."

"I was hoping you'd say that." The enemy Krogan grinned confidently as the Geth behind him began to fan out. "Saren wants the Doctor, and he's gonna get her. One way, or another." He turned to the Geth. "Kill them! Spare the Asari if you can. If not, doesn't matter." He shrugged casually as he pulled out his gun.

"Fan out! Protect the Doctor!" Shepard barked the order, everyone immediately falling into position. What followed couldn't really be considered a fight, so much as a one-sided slaughter. Despite the enemy having the high ground and surrounding them, as well as Shepard's team being further disadvantaged by having to protect the Doctor, the enemy was outnumbered two-to-one, and every member of Shepard's team was an expert in their field. In less than a minute, three trashed Geth, and a dead Krogan with third-degree burns, a smashed headplate, and diamond shards lodged in his body littered the floor.

Their path now cleared, the squad made a break for the door at the cave began to collapse around them. As rocks and dust fell from the ceiling and walls, Ben stayed at the back on the pack, using his Fourarms DNA to push everyone else ahead faster, even if only slightly. At one point Shepard got worried and glanced back, only to immediately feel a sense of relief when she saw Ben deflecting some falling rocks as he snatched Dr. T'Soni away from a walkway the broke away from under her feet. By the time the whole squad made it out, everyone felt like they had just run a marathon. Ben more than anyone else, as after his arms shifted back to normal, he actually fainted from a combination of exhaustion and relief.

 **...**

 **Normandy**

Shepard was busy fighting off a major headache from everything that had just happen, and everything she'd just heard. Bad enough that they'd barely made it out of the ruins alive, but the meeting that followed was even worse in her opinion. Before Dr. T'Soni - or rather, Liara, as she had requested her new friends call her - shared her findings on the Protheans, Shepard thought she had a good grasp on the situation, but now she wasn't so sure. She thought the Reapers had been trying to wipe out all life in the galaxy since the time of the Protheans, but if Liara was to be believed, then apparently they'd been around since long before them, conducting a cycle of extinction spanning an untold length of time. Why they did this was anybody's guess, but if it were true, then things just got a whole lot more complicated.

Fortunately, Liara had decided to join her crew, devoting her sizable knowledge of Prothean artifacts and other related topics to the team, to say nothing of her biotics. Unfortunately, the Council had been less than cooperative in the idea, Sparatus especially. While Tevos tried to remain neutral, and Valern took Shepard's side more often than not, it seemed the Turian Councilor was becoming increasingly frustrated with the debates and agendas that Ben's many impromptu allies on the Citadel were pushing with the Council, and was desperate to claw out some sort of win against him. Unfortunately for him, that feat was impossible at the time Shepard had contacted the Council, as Ben had been busy sleeping off the mental and physical exhaustion of the mission. As a result, the Turian Councilor took out his frustration on Shepard for as long as he could before she intentionally cut the line.

"-And that's what you missed out on while you were asleep." Jane finished recapping the events of the past few hours to Ben, who had been resting in the infirmary.

"Thanks for catching me up, Jane." Ben chuckled at the mental image of Jane dropping the Councilor's call as he stretched the kinks out of his back. "Did Joker want a medal for getting us out of the ruins just in the nick of time?"

"Yeah, but I talked him out of it." Jane grinned deviously. "It was easy once I pointed out all the boring speeches from politicians he'd have to sit through."

"Yeah, he'd definitely hate that." Ben chuckled as he pushed himself off the bed. "So, how's Liara adapting to life on the Normandy?"

"I was just about to check on her actually." Jane remarked as she made her way to the end of the infirmary. "Dr. Chawkas said she was in this back room."

"I'll come with you." Ben invited himself as they entered the storage room, quickly spotting Liara sitting at a desk to the left.

The relatively young Asari noticed the duo entering, and immediately got up to greet them. "Commander. Ambassador." She nodded respectfully at them both. "Have you come to check up on me?"

"You're looking a lot better than when we found you in the ruins." Ben noted in approval.

"Dr. Chakwas assures me I am going to be fine." Liara reassured them both. "I was impressed with her knowledge of Asari physiology."

"You're in good hands." Jane nodded confidently. "Dr. Chakwas knows what she's doing."

"I'd say she knows it a little too well." Ben muttered bitterly, remembering her 'purely scientific interest' in his relations with Jane.

Not quite following what Ben was referring to, much less why Shepard elbowed him in the ribs for it, Liara decided to address a few things she'd been meaning to discuss with her saviors. "I never properly thanked you all for saving me from the Geth." She said gratefully. "If you hadn't shown up, I..."

"I'm just glad we got there in time." Jane smiled warmly.

"So am I." Liara seconded the opinion. "I know you took a chance, bringing me aboard this ship." She continued, slightly nervous. "I have seen the way your crew looks at me, they do not trust me. But I am not like Benezia." She assured them with a fire in her voice. "I will do whatever I can to help you stop Saren. I promise."

"Don't worry Liara." Ben grabbed her shoulder comfortingly. "We hacked a few Geth on our way to rescue you. We know you're not with your mother. We trust you, just give the others a little time, they'll come around."

"It means a lot to hear you say that Ambassador." Liara smiled brightly at Ben. "Thank you."

Sensing from the look on her face that she had something else she wanted to say, but wasn't sure how to bring it up, Ben let out a warm chuckle. "You can ask me whatever you want, Liara. I won't judge."

"Oh, by the Goddess! Thank you so much!" Liara let out a dramatic sigh of relief. "I have so many questions I'd like to ask you, Ambassador. The crew told me a few things when I asked: That you were genetically engineered from scratch to serve your purpose, your plans to negotiate with the Geth and granting AIs rights as citizens, how your policies and practices involve a much more hands on approach than the Council is used to, even what you've shared about other species and environments in Andromeda, but every answer I got just created more questions. I know my field of expertise is technically Protheans, but I'll take any opportunity to broaden my horizons." She would have kept talking without pause, but she had to stop and catch her breath.

"Alright, alright. I get that you want to talk about me. Just calm down and breath for a second." Ben insisted playfully. "How about we do things like this. You ask me something about...well, anything you want to know. I ask you something about yourself. And so on and so forth."

"You want to know about me?" Liara asked hesitantly. "I'm afraid I'm not very interesting, Ambassador, especially in comparison to someone such as yourself. I spend most of my time in remote digs. Unearthing mundane items hidden in long forgotten Prothean ruins."

"Considering we're gonna be going up against the evil AIs that wiped out the Protheans, those ruins might be more important than you think, Liara." Ben noted comfortingly. "And since you technically told me a little about yourself just now, it's your turn to ask a question."

"I...yes, of course." Liara hesitated, before pushing forward eagerly. "Well then, I suppose my first question would have to be...forgive me if this is an uncomfortable topic, but do you fear that you've become at all compromised in your mission?" Of all questions Liara could have asked, that was both the strangest, and most vague she could have asked. Realizing this, she quickly rephrased her question. "What I mean to say is, you were designed to act as an impartial judge and guide to further the development of our galaxy, were you not? I have heard from the crew that you are engaging in...relations with Tali'Zorah and Commander Shepard. Aren't you worried that your feelings for them could cause your views to become somewhat biased?"

"Bringing up the biggest question first, eh?" Jane remarked with a sly grin. "I've gotta be honest, I've been wondering about that too. Kinda strange if you ask me, not that I mind at all." She chuckled as she remembered how good her lover was, despite him being created only recently.

"I'm not really worried about that." Ben shrugged nonchalantly. "I know the best ways to improve the galaxy from a purely objective standpoint. I can mess around with whoever I want without changing that fact." The way this conversation was going, Ben was very grateful he had secretly been studying a thesaurus for some fancy words to use since he arrived. "Hell, if anything, the ladies I'm with are the ones being compromised by my involvement with them. It's hard to say no when the only sensible answer is yes."

"Your modesty becomes you." Jane bantered sarcastically, even as Liara seemed to be deep in thought.

"Yes..." Liara nodded as if processing some sage wisdom. "I suppose, for one such as yourself, who comes from a clearly much more advanced society, our political views, beliefs, and actions must seem quite primitive and unenlightened by comparison."

"Actually, it's more like he's just too sure of himself to listen to anybody else." Jane countered, looking in mock judgement at Ben.

"Moving right along." Ben nudged the conversation forward, taking Jane's mockery for the good natured game it was. "I'm thinking it's gotta be pretty dangerous working your job like you do, not to mention lonely. Must be hard for a super social race like the Asari."

"Sometimes I would run afoul of some indigenous lifeforms, or stumble across a small band of mercenaries or privateers. But I was always careful." Liara spoke as if such encounters were no big deal. "Until the Geth followed me to Artemis Tau, I never found myself in any situation my biotics could not handle." She briefly looked down, as if in shame. "As for the solitude, well...counter to most of my species, that is the one aspect that most appealed to me. Sometimes I just need to...get away from people."

"You don't like hanging with other people?" Ben inquired, momentarily forgetting the quid pro quo they had agreed on.

"I suppose it comes from being a Matriarch's daughter." Liara responded sadly, also forgetting her other questions to focus on her personal issues. "People expected me to follow in Benezia's footsteps. They wanted me to become a leader of our people." She shook her head, recalling all the heavy expectations, along with their scorn when she not only failed to meet them, but actively avoided them. "Matriarchs guide our people into the future, they seek the truth of what is yet to come. Maybe that's why I became so interested in the secrets of the past...It sounds so foolish when I say it like that. It sounds like I became an archaeologist simply to spite Benezia."

"A little rebellion is good for a growing kid." Ben grinned knowingly, having gone through a good deal of teenage rebellion back when he - or rather, the original Ben - was a teenager himself. "Helps you find out what you wanna do in your life, and whether or not that involves following in your parent's footsteps, or making your own path."

Liara let out a brief huff of laughter at Ben's advice. "You speak with the wisdom of the Matriarchs, Ambassador. That is exactly what Benezia said when I told her of my decision." Her eyes dropped at the reminder of her fallen mother, and perhaps something else as well. "But there is more to it than that. I felt drawn to the past. The Protheans were these wondrous, mysterious figures. I wanted to know everything about them, that is why I find Shepard so fascinating." She looked to the Commander. "You were marked by the Beacon on Eden Prime. Touched by working Prothean technology."

"Sounds like you wanna dissect me in a lab somewhere." Jane noted sternly.

"What?! No!" Liara panicked at the accusation. "I did not mean to insinuate...uh, I never meant to offend you Shepard!" She insisted. "I only meant that you would be an interesting specimen for study...eh, no, that's even worse." She realized with a groan.

"Calm down, Liara." Ben pat her on the back. "Jane was just joking about the whole dissection thing. She's got a weird sense of humor like that." Jane flipped Ben the bird, ironically and intentionally proving his point.

"Joking?" Liara sputtered before facepalming. "Oh, by the Goddess! How could I be so dense? You both must think I am a complete and utter fool! Now you know why I prefer to spend my time in the field, with data disks and computers. I always seem to say something embarrassing around people." She sighed. "Please, just pretend this conversation never happened."

"That won't be possible." Tali remarked playfully as she entered the room. "I was just testing out a new drone I've been working on by having it spy on your conversation, making sure I don't have to worry about some cute little Asari trying to steal my man, and I have no intention of deleting the footage." She chuckled as a floating sphere flew down from the ceiling corner of the room, just to the right of the door, and vanished into her suit.

"Stealing your-? I have no intention of trying to steal anyone from anyone!" Liara panicked nervously. "Not that I would be opposed to melding with Ben mind you. The things I could learn from connecting my nervous system to his could potentially fill an entire research paper on the subject of his no doubt expertly crafted physiology and...oh, I'm just making it worse and..." She stopped when she noticed everyone other than herself was trying their best not to laugh. "And you're making a joke again. Wonderful." She sighed dejectedly.

"I just couldn't help myself." Tali snickered in delight. "When I saw how easily Jane managed to trick you, I just had to get in on the fun." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Seriously though, once we get to know each other a little better, and my immune system is strong enough to last about an hour outside my suit, then we can talk about letting you meld with Ben."

"I'm not falling for your attempts at humor this time." Liara insisted adamantly.

"Who ever said it was a joke?" Jane grinned mischievously. For several long and uncomfortable seconds, Liara was left to second guess herself based on Shepard's remark. It was only when she looked to Tali and saw her nodding, then at Ben, who could only shrug in resignation, that the young Asari realized they were actually being serious.

 _'Why does the truth make me feel more embarrassed than a joke?'_ Liara thought to herself as her face turned a deeper shade of blue.

 **Author's Note: Well, there's another chapter down. Liara is recruited, some more intel on the Geth and Reapers is gathered, and the traditional hazing of new recruits is out of the way. One thing I'm probably gonna get at least a few questions about is the decision to make the Geth Hoppers into Geth that have had their platforms combined with Husks. This is just a little flavoring I'm using to make this story more my own, rather than just a cut-and-paste replica of the Mass Effect games, just with Ben added. I don't expect it to make much impact on the story down the road, but it kinda makes sense in a way. The Geth Hoppers are said to be a recent "evolution" of the Geth in canon, with more emphasis on synthetic muscles in their design than their original platforms. Also, they disappear completely after the first game, and since we all know what the bulk of the humans captured by the Collectors are reduced to in Mass Effect 2, this head canon kinda makes it all fit, as the Reapers are bringing in the Collectors as added muscle in that game, and are thus more concerned about making the Proto-Reaper at that point than building up their ground troops.**

 **As for the separate story with sex scenes, I've heard your voices, and decided to do that, but I'm gonna hold off on it for at least a few more chapters. After all, at this point there's only one unseen sex scene in this story to work with, and I wanna build up a little more of the story before I get to that bit of spice. Speaking of story building, next chapter is gonna be all side missions, but some of them are gonna bring what will be an important group in Part 2 to the Normandy Crew's notice, so it won't be just filler. Stay tuned!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Here come the Side Quests! And yes, they are a necessary part of the story. Don't worry though, these are some of the good ones!**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 9

Breaking the Mold

 **Normandy**

Immediately after Ben, Jane and Tali got finished teasing Liara, Joker pinged Jane's comms about an incoming message over a secure channel. Apparently Admiral Kahoku had managed to dig up something regarding the Thresher Maw trap back on Edolus. Remembering the trauma Shepard had gone through during that mission, Ben tagged along for moral support.

"Shepard, this is Admiral Kahoku." The recorded message began. "I found out who set that trap for my men. The ones killed by the thresher maw." Shepard tensed at the mention of that beast, though eased up slightly when Ben grabbed her shoulder reassuringly. "Damn, I hope you get this message!" The Admiral cursed silently. "It was a group called Cerberus. An Alliance black ops organization. Top-secret, highest level security clearance. They vanished a few months ago. Dropped right off the grid. Nobody knew where they went or what they were up to. They've gone completely rogue, Shepard!" His recording turned angry. "They're conducting illegal genetic experiments, trying to create some kind of super soldier. I don't have any proof, but I found the coordinates for one of their research worlds." The message began to sound slightly desperate, the Admiral clearly at his wit's end over this fiasco. "I'm uploading them with this message. They're completely out of control. Somebody needs to stop them. I've done my part. Now, it's up to you. This is...this is probably the last you'll hear from me." The Admiral's voice sounded completely resigned and beaten. "Cerberus is after me now. I need to disappear before they find me." With what would likely be his final message complete, the recording cut off.

"Joker! What are the coordinates Kahoku sent us?" Shepard barked out the moment the message ended.

"Planet Binthu, Yangtze System, Voyager Cluster." Joker answered promptly, dead serious for once. "Don't worry Commander, I've already charted us the fastest course."

"Good, because I wanna squash these Cerberus bastards for what they did!" Shepard hissed dangerously as she went to the locker room to suit up.

"Yikes, glad I'm not those guys." Ben winced nervously as he remembered how Shepard had torn into that thresher maw.

"You and me both, Ben." Joker replied over his comms. "It's times like these where I'm glad Shepard has me use the time you guys spend on the ground to scout out every system we go to from the Normandy for those resources and artifacts you got intel on from that Turian Admiral. The further away from her I am when she gets like that the better."

"That reminds me, I should probably ask Liara how she's doing with studying and cataloging all those artifacts we've picked up." Ben noted casually.

"...I hate you so much right now." Joker grumbled over the comms before cutting Ben off.

"What the hell is his problem?" Ben scratched his head in genuine confusion, only to get the best deadpan 'Really?' face that Quasar's avatar could muster. "...Okay, I see your point. But Liara and I aren't like that." Quasar's expression didn't change. "...yet?" Ben amended uncertainly, getting a sage nod from Quasar in response before he vanished back into Ben's armor. "I curse the day you developed a sense of humor." He grumbled at his partner even as he went off to get ready.

 **...**

 **Binthu**

"So how are you liking all the artifacts we've gathered on the Normandy, Liara?!" Ben asked loudly over the roar of Garrus firing on turrets that were firing on the Mako while Shepard drove like a woman possessed. "Find anything interesting yet?!"

"Not yet! I'd love a little more time to study those Prothean Data Drives though!" Liara responded as she glanced out the window worriedly. "The information I could potentially recover from them with the right cipher would be beyond value! Do you think Shepard would mind terribly if I melded with her to obtain the information she got from the Prothean Beacon?! It might serve as a point of reference, to help me decode them!"

"Going a little fast, aren't we?!" Tali joked just before Shepard pulled off a wicked skid into the damaged turret, finishing it off with a sickening crack. "Ohh, it's going to take me forever to fix the damage she's doing to the Mako, I just know it." She bemoaned the labor ahead of her as the crew piled out of the vehicle and into the Cerberus base.

"...I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that last part over the crash." Liara remarked uncertainly as they waited for Tali to hack the door. "It sounded like you said-"

"I'm in!" Tali said excitedly as the door to the base swooshed open. "Now let's go kill these Bosh'tet's!" She hissed violently as she drew her shotgun. "By the way, what was that you were saying Liara?"

"...There's a Prothean structure just up that hill." Liara sighed, suddenly feeling less interested in Tali's dialogue than before. "I'll try to salvage any artifacts from it I can while you all...do whatever it is you do to these people."

"Suit yourself." Shepard shrugged as she lead the march into the base.

"Try not to get caught in a bubble again." Wrex teased as he and the rest of the crew followed the leader.

Once they were all inside, Liara began the trudge up the hill to examine the ruins. "Next time." She told herself sternly, trying to bolster her confidence and steel her shaking nerves. "I'll go into an enemy base to help them kill terrorists next time."

Meanwhile, as Liara was giving herself a pep talk, the rest of the crew had managed to get a few rooms into the Cerberus base before something went wrong. Surprisingly, it wasn't Cerberus itself that presented the problem.

"...What. The. Fuck?!" Wrex growled as he tried to burn a hole in the force field cell he was glaring at. Or rather, what was inside the force field cell. "Why the hell do these Cerberus pyjacks have a Rachni?!"

"Quiet Wrex!" Shepard hissed as she pulled him down behind a console awkwardly. "Or do you want every Cerberus agent on this planet to hear us coming from a mile away?!" She might be curious about the giant bug as well, but she knew how to keep her cool under pressure.

"Yes!" Wrex hissed hungrily as he cradled his shotgun dangerously. "If these bastards are trying to bring back the greatest threat the galaxy has ever faced, I want them to know I'm coming. I want them to be scared."

"Later!" Shepard hissed back strictly. "Right now, I think we can use this to our advantage." She grinned maliciously as she hacked into the console controlling the barrier.

What happened next was a thing of beauty - at least in Wrex's eyes. The moment the barrier dropped, the Rachni - angry from the invasive tests Cerberus had no doubt been performing on it - lunged out and began to viciously maul the Cerberus researchers and troops that had been abusing it. Staying hidden while taking the occasional potshot at the Cerberus troops that were occupied dealing with the Rachni Soldier that had just gotten loose, the entire room was cleared of hostiles in no time, and with only a single minor injury sustained by their squad.

"Get this disgusting thing off me!" Tali screeched as she tried to push the heavy carcass of the Rachni away, the beast having lunged at her and pinned her to the floor just before being shot to death.

"Easy Tali, I've got this." Ben assured her gently as he used his Fourarms DNA to throw the Rachni corpse away with ease. Once he did, Tali immediately hopped up and clung to him tightly. "Whoa there! What's gotten into you, Tali?" Ben asked as he rubbed her trembling back. Looking from her to the Rachni and back again, Ben quickly put two and two together. "Tali...are you afraid of bugs?" He asked in disbelief.

"Those things are not normal, Ben." Tali said in a much too serious tone. "I've never seen it myself, but we never had bugs on Rannoch."

"You never had-? Then how do your plants get pollinated?" Ben questioned in confusion as the rest of the squad began searching the base for any intel or loot to grab.

"Our homeworld had very few microbial organisms." Tali explained, using science as a mantra to calm herself down. "Those that did exist were often benign, or even beneficial to our biology. We lived in symbiosis with our environment, so bugs were never needed for pollination." He fingers clenched tensely as she held Ben close. "Unfortunately, that made our immune systems ill-equipped to deal with life off our homeworld even before our exile made the situation worse." She hissed bitterly.

"I'll help you rebuild your homeworld, Tali." Ben assured her as her rubbed her back. "And I'll do it the right way, by helping you make peace with the Geth."

"I know you will." Tali chuckled as she stepped away from her boyfriend, feeling much better now. "It's funny, aside from the part about making peace with the Geth, you sounded like my father just now. He was always talking about building us a house on the homeworld, always working around the clock to try and make it a reality...never having time for me..." Unable to bare the sadness tinging her voice, Ben grabbed her firmly by the rear, getting an excited squeak of joy from his sexy, perverted, alien girlfriend. "You know me so well." She giggled, always happy to be reminded that the person most important to her thought she was attractive even under a suit.

"Ahem." Garrus coughed loudly, deliberately interrupting the moment. "If you two are quite done playing grabass, we still have two other facilities on this planet to raid."

"Your timing is impeccable, Garrus." Tali huffed as she and Ben parted. "You can't tell with the mask in the way, but I'm very angry right now. I'd flip you off, but I don't have enough fingers."

"Promises, promises." Kaidan quipped as the crew poured out of the base.

Just as Ben and Tali began making their way out, someone grabbed them both firmly by the rear. "I hope you two enjoyed your little moment alone together." Shepard smirked at them both as she forcefully ushered them forward. "Because once we get done killing all these bastards planetside, both of your sexy asses are mine." She growled hungrily before letting them go, marching forward with an eerie spring in her step as Ben and Tali were left to lag awkwardly behind.

"...I am so in love with that woman." Ben muttered in mute awe.

"...So am I." Tali seconded the motion, just as awed as her boyfriend.

 **...**

After salvaging a crashed probe on the way to their next objective, a quick shootout with a pair of turrets was the only thing that stood between the crew and some soon to be dead Cerberus agents. Unlike the last time, Liara actually went into the base with them. The second Cerberus base turned out to be just as bare bones as the first. A few rooms and supplies, with scientists studying a trio of smaller Rachni Workers while the guards stood watch. Also, just like with the first base, releasing the Rachni served as a good way to distract the Cerberus operatives while the squad worked their magic.

Everyone had to admit, despite being an archaeologist for most of her many - by human standard - years, Liara was pretty decent in a fight.

"Looks like all that talk about running into pirates on digs wasn't just boasting." Ben congratulated the jumpy Liara when she easily used her biotics to throw a Cerberus scientist into a commando, sending them both crashing into a wall, where Wrex gleefully blasted them to death with his shotgun.

With everything quickly and easily wrapped up at Cerberus bases 1 and 2, a probe salvaged in the trip between them, and even a platinum deposit marked for claiming by the Alliance on the way to the last base, things seemed to be smooth sailing.

"This all seems too easy." Ben remarked cautiously as the squad entered the third base.

"I know the feeling." Wrex seconded his opinion. "A job like this isn't supposed to be easy. The better things seem to be going, the worse it's gonna get when shit hits the fan."

"Surely that's all just superstition." Liara argued against the idea, though doubt tinged her voice.

"Not in my experience." Shepard muttered darkly, her eye twitching slightly as a mental image of an attacking thresher maw flashed in her mind's eye. "Just keep your guard up." She cautioned everyone as they entered the room where the subjects were being kept. "...What the hell are those things?" She muttered in confusion when she saw the subjects contained within the barrier. They looked like humans in stance and shape, but they were completely dark-grey and sickly looking, almost corpse-like.

"Whatever they are, let's hope they're angry." Tali remarked as she began hacking the console, dropping the field and letting the monsters loose on the Cerberus agents. The fight was pretty much routine at this point, with the inhuman things providing a nice distraction while the crew gunned them and the enemy agents down like dogs.

"Wait...there's someone else in here." Jane noted tensely as her gaze landed on someone lying in the middle of the room. "Rear Admiral Kahoku..." She frowned at the sight of his corpse.

"External trauma is relatively minor, most likely post-mortem." Liara noted clinically as she studied the corpse, her emotional investment in helping the late Rear Admiral lowest among the crew, making her the obvious choice to examine the body. "The needle marks on his arm are the most likely means of execution."

"We have to find whoever is responsible for this and put a bullet in their skull!" Ashley hissed furiously, her blood boiling at the sight of a superior officer put down like like some wild animal just for trying to do the right thing.

"I don't know about the skull, but someone here probably put quite a few bullets in them already." Garrus joked darkly. "Still, I don't feel right about leaving a job half done. We should take all the intel we gathered from this place and use it to track down any other bases these Cerberus people have."

"I'll make one more side trip for this - for Kahoku's sake - but then we gotta get back to our main mission." Shepard decided resolutely. "Remember, we've still got to take down Saren."

"And Benezia." Liara added stoically, almost sounding a tiny bit eager for that part of the job.

"...And I thought I had issues with my family." Tali noted sarcastically.

 **...**

 **Nepheron**

With the data they'd scrounged from the research bases, as well as the final entries in Kahoku's omni-tool, Quasar managed to triangulate the location of a higher level Cerberus base in a nearby system. Granted, all the evidence suggested it was only a lower-middle rank base in Cerberus's organization at best, but it was all they had to go on. After the traditional scouring of the landing area for anything of value turned up three immediately available resource deposits, as well as a crashed probe, an old shack, another mummified Salarian with accompanying dog tags, and a Thresher Maw that the entire squad gleefully worked together to kill as an ultra-violent form of stress relief, they finally made their way to the Cerberus base.

"Please Shepard, allow me to take point this time." Liara had insisted once they had entered the base. "I want to show just what I am capable of in the field."

"You sure about that, Liara?" Ben asked her as he activated Fourarms and Diamondhead DNA in tandem, expanding the crystals of his left forearms into a large rectangular shield, while the crystal blades in his right hands fused into a massive claymore. "I know you're not as used to combat as the rest of us."

"Thank you for your concern Ben." Liara nodded gratefully. "But I need to prove that I can stand on my own, to be of use to you and Shepard." She explained confidently, only for that confidence to slip when she realized what she was saying. "In the field that is! I need to prove that I'm useful in a fight! Not that I'm not good at other things, mind you! Archaeology, that is! But you already know that..." She knew she should have stopped talking long ago, but the adrenaline from the fight with the thresher maw was still fueling her, as were certain...things she overheard Shepard, Ben and Tali doing in the infirmary while she was trying to examine the Prothean Data Drives in the very next room. "Ohh...this is why I'm no good at socializing." She bemoaned as her imagination ran wild.

"Okay, calm down, Liara." Jane chuckled at the panicking space babe. "Nobody here ever had any doubts about your abilities." She grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to placate her.

"...I have my doubts." Liara responded with a sigh. "It's more than just you and the rest of the crew I'm trying to impress here. I have to make sure I'm strong enough to handle what we're doing. Things are only going to get tougher from here on out, after all. I have to be ready for it." Her resolution brought a warm smile to both her and Shepard.

"Now kiss!" Quasar stage whispered eagerly from his perch on Ben's shoulder, totally killing the mood.

"You've been browsing Joker's extranet history, haven't you?" Ben addressed his AI partner stoically.

"...No comment." Quasar responded before deactivating his avatar.

"Well now that all of that awkwardness is over, what do you say we kill some terrorists?" Ashley remarked as she drew her gun eagerly, prompting everyone to follow suit. Making their way through the doors, it quickly became apparent that these Cerberus agents were much better prepared than their now dead cohorts, as no sooner did they enter the other room than they started shooting at them.

With Liara on point, her biotic barriers provided excellent cover for the crew to strafe behind. While the numerous enemy commandos and snipers tried to bombard them with everything they had, they were blocked by Liara's defenses long enough for the rest of the squad to gun most of them down, either from behind her barriers, or by stopping at other areas of cover that she passed by. Garrus and Ben in particular were very useful during the skirmish, as while the Turian sniper managed to provide cover fire against the numerous enemy snipers, Ben charged forward, his crystal shield absorbing most of the enemy ammunition, and his crystal claymore quickly finding its way into the enemy's necks once he got in close.

"RRAAAAGHHHH!" Wrex roared as he bashed in the skull of the last surviving commando with his headplate, his bloodrage subsiding soon afterwards. "Ahh, that was relaxing." He sighed as if he had just gotten back from the spa.

"You and I have very different definitions of relaxing, Wrex." Ben winced as he flicked the blood off his blade before deactivating his DNA, trying to avoid looking at the decapitated bodies he had left in his wake. _'I really am getting too used to this.'_ He thought to himself as the crew began searching the now empty base.

"Keep your eyes peeled for anything useful." Shepard instructed them. "If you find something that looks like a computer, don't examine it too closely until you call the rest of the squad. There's no telling what sort of failsafes these bastards have installed on their equipment." She ordered strictly, leaving no room for argument.

It didn't take long for everything of potential use in both rooms they had already gone through to be found and obtained. After that, Kaidan found a branching path in the back of the second room. The path on the right led to a locker room full of weapons and armor, which, while all useful in their own right, were small potatoes compared to what they found in the left chamber.

"This must be their main computer." Tali noted as she examined the terminal against the wall, taking great care not to touch anything. "They've probably got some kind of security to flash the entire database if accessed by an unauthorized user. That's what I'd do if I were up to something shady."

"But you can get around those security measures, right?" Kaidan asked hopefully, trusting the Quarian to be able to handle any technical issues.

"Maybe..." Tali hummed thoughtfully as she looked around, her eyes brightening slightly in epiphany when her gaze landed on Ben. "That's it! Ben, your suit can absorb any machinery or data it comes in contact with, right?"

"Affirmative." Quasar popped up before Ben could answer. "With this suit's capabilities, absorbing all data from this terminal without triggering any failsafes is a simple matter."

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Ashley inquired in concern. "That suit might absorb something it really shouldn't."

"That possibility is statistically highly improbable." Quasar reassured her. "In addition to the highly sophisticated hardware, software, and preexisting security measures already installed in my platform, I have been periodically updating it with any protective software I come across on the extranet, as well as reverse-engineering a large quantity of viruses and malware in order to create better defenses. Put simply, I am currently the best protected computer in the entire galaxy."

"Good enough for me." Ben remarked casually as he placed a hand on the terminal, green electronic lines appearing over the surface of his suit and the terminal for a few seconds. "Did you get everything, Quasar?"

"Affirmative." The AI's avatar nodded proudly. "There were viruses and a purge protocol in the terminal, but I have quarantined them for study, and flashed the data from the source. The data itself is heavily encrypted, but I have also been collecting various decoding programs since our partnership began. Creating a proper decryption algorithm for this cipher should not take long."

"Should I be concerned that Quasar is developing so rapidly?" Tali asked uncertainly.

"Your caution is understandable, Tali'Zorah." Quasar replied impartially. "However, despite my evolving programming, I am still hardwired into this suit, and I can no longer exist without it, or directly influence Ben's actions...Furthermore, I find myself growing very...fond of you all." He said with what Ben could only describe happiness. "Our work together in defense of the galaxy from a myriad of threats provides me with positive feedback. I am...proud to be a member of this team."

"We're proud to have you with us too, Quasar." Jane smiled as she gave Ben a pat on the shoulder Quasar was projecting his avatar from. "Come on, team. We have to get back to the Normandy to report this intel to the Alliance."

 **...**

 **Normandy**

When the crew got back to the ship and began unloading and cataloging everything they retrieved from that last Cerberus base, they were all set to set a course back on the trail for Saren when Joker's voice came in over their comms, asking them to report to the galaxy map.

"Transmission coming in, Commander." Joker's voice sounded uncharacteristically grim, setting off immediate warning bells in Shepard's head. "I think you're going to want to hear this one." Not even waiting for her response, he patched the communication through.

"Greetings, Commander Shepard." A smooth, smug, and digitally altered sounding voice came in through the communicator. "I represent a party interested in obtaining information on Cerberus activities."

"Who are you? And who do you represent?" Shepard demanded curtly, intentionally letting a dangerous edge creep into her voice.

"Who I am is inconsequential." The voice remarked with casual dismissal. "Suffice to say, I am an agent for the Shadow Broker. You see, Admiral Kahoku contacted my employer looking for information on the location of any Cerberus facilities. We provided that information on the promise that he would turn over copies of all files gathered from the Cerberus systems to us."

 _'This isn't good.'_ Shepard thought to herself as she weighed her options and the facts. Kahoku had made a deal with these scumbags, but that deal had died with him. Now they were trying to collect from her, but she had no such obligation to them. She could withhold the information, and the Shadow Broker might understand, but much more likely they'd be angry at her to some extent. The fact that the Shadow Broker had provided information on the location of Cerberus bases meant that they likely had ties with them, and Cerberus could use those ties to recover the information, while the Shadow Broker would no doubt make a huge profit from the deal. Still, she wasn't prepared to make someone so dangerous her enemy, especially not when she was already dealing with Saren. She might be able to leverage the recovered data for information on Saren, but there was also the chance that the Shadow Broker would be offended by the idea of paying more for information he had already essentially bought.

 _'Damn it! No matter how I think it through, it always ends badly for me in some way! I need another option...'_ As her eyes wandered in contemplation, she saw something - or rather, someone - who made her remember a few earlier decisions and comments. A devious, dangerous, and all too tempting idea forming in her mind, she turned away and quickly typed something into her Omni-tool, then placed her hand on Ben's left shoulder. "I'm not sure how I should respond to this, Ben." She sighed as her eyes flickered to his shoulder a few times, hoping he would get the hint. When green lines ran from Shepard's Omni-tool to Ben's shoulder, and Ben's retractable visor popped out across his eyes, both of their eyes lit up in excitement. "I've made a lot of tough calls in the past, but you've made some good ones too. A second opinion would be much appreciated."

"...I say go for it." Ben replied, making a show of looking hesitant. "It might let Cerberus get the information back in the long run, but right now we need information on Saren more than anything else. We'll still send a copy to the Alliance as well, but it can't hurt to cover all our bases."

"Alright. You've got a deal." Shepard turned back to the console and replied to the middleman as if she had just swallowed a very bitter pill. "I'll forward you a copy of the retrieved data, and you tell your boss to give us everything he has on Saren."

"I believe that can be arranged." The middleman replied smugly, glad that Shepard was seeing things his way. "My employer has no fondness for Saren after he stabbed them in the back, so giving you information to help dispose of him should be to their liking. Forward a copy of the data, and I'll negotiate the deal."

"I'm going to need some collateral first." Shepard insisted, making a show of putting up a fight. "However many credits you think this information might be worth. I'll hold onto it until you can get me the information I want, at which point I'll give it back. That way you can't run off and leave me with nothing to show for this deal."

"A prudent negotiator." The middleman chuckled respectfully. "Very well, I've forwarded the funds I think are a fair price. Now you hold up your end of the bargain."

"...A deal is a deal." Shepard sighed reluctantly as she transmitted the data. "Fair warning, the data we found is heavily encrypted, I've never seen anything quite like it. Might take a while to crack."

"We have our ways." The middleman assured her confidently. "We hope to work with you again someday, Commander Shepard." With that, the line was cut.

"...Okay, Shepard." Tali grinned smugly underneath her helmet. "Don't think I didn't see what you did with Ben's suit just now. What did you really give them?"

 **...**

 **Shadow Broker Base**

The Shadow Broker was having an unusually good day today. Saren's recently exposed treachery had led to a boom in business. Information is power, and during times of chaos, power was in very high demand. The greatest, most trusted SPECTRE goes rogue, and the first Human SPECTRE, along with the first extra-galactic ambassador were chasing after him. What could be more chaotic than that?

So, although it made him busier than ever before, The Shadow Broker relished the influx of information flying across his monitors. More information meant more power for him, and he was nothing if not a power hungry man. One bit of information in particular caught his eye on this day however, as it was flagged as being from Commander Shepard.

Apparently, the newly minted SPECTRE had succeeded where Kahoku had failed, obtaining top secret information from a few Cerberus bases. The information didn't reach as far as anything that could lead directly to his - in his many eyes - unworthy competitor, The Illusive Man. The Shadow Broker had made sure of that little fact himself. After all, as incompetent and green as Jack Harper - The Illusive Man's real name, a fact The Shadow Broker learned almost immediately after the human began to build power - might be compared to the greater galactic community, he was still an interesting source of information to say the least. Everything Cerberus did pushed, or outright broke every boundary possible, which meant the information they could provide him - willingly or otherwise - was always a boon.

The fact that Shepard only wanted information on Saren in exchange was just the icing on the cake, as rather than just killing two birds with one stone, he'd be killing two birds with each other. Saren is dead for betraying The Shadow Broker, The Shadow Broker gets the information on Cerberus, and Shepard gets to believe she actually accomplished something, while also being grateful for his assistance. The Shadow Broker would lose nothing, and gain a valuable pawn, useful information, and a dead Saren.

...Or so he thought.

The moment he opened the file - in an isolated system, obviously - his computers started blaring out alarms. Whatever that file had contained, it had easily broken through every security precaution he'd prepared, and was currently siphoning a massive amount of data and credits from all his system, and very quickly at that. Isolating the virus, cutting off the rest of his systems, scrambling and encoding all his data, dumping data into remote servers to be retrieved later; The Shadow Broker literally couldn't even begin activating every countermeasure he could think of quickly enough, as the virus was more malignant than anything he'd ever seen before. It would have to be better than anything else if it was able to out maneuver everything The Shadow Broker's cyber defenses could throw at it.

By the time he'd FINALLY managed to get rid of the blasted virus, the damage done was so extensive it made The Shadow Broker's head spin. One-third of all data and one-fifth of all his funds had been transferred directly to the Systems Alliance, and the virus itself had self-destructed the moment The Shadow Broker had managed to corner it, meaning he couldn't even salvage and reverse-engineer the incredibly advanced bit of programming that had caused the damage to try and recoup at least SOME of his losses. It wasn't damage he couldn't eventually recover from, but even with the current rate of business, it would take at least a year to rebuild his security and the control he had over the information trade, and that was assuming that things kept going at their current rate during the entire time. Worst of all, the control and resources he'd lost had gone directly to the Systems Alliance, and even setting aside the rogue NGO Cerberus, Humanity was the most ambitious species The Shadow Broker had ever seen. Not even he could accurately predict just how much damage they could do to his operations with what was stolen.

By the time The Shadow Broker had managed to recover from his enraged frenzy, his office was completely unrecognizable, with all of his already sparse furniture in many pieces across the floor.

"Well played, Commander Shepard." The Shadow Broker growled in 9-parts seething rage and 1-part reluctant respect. "Well played, Ben Tennyson. Enjoy your victory while it lasts you two, because you've just made a declaration of war against the entire galaxy. And there will be no quarter for either of you." The Shadow Broker began his plotting of revenge immediately, but made sure to immediately arrange a little 'accident' for a certain middleman in his employ for incompetence.

 **...**

 **Agebinium**

"Remember Garrus, just because Shepard trusts you here, doesn't mean I do." Ashley glared at the Turian harshly. "You are not to breath one word of this to ANYONE. Not to the Council, and ESPECIALLY not to any other Turians. Understand?!"

Normally Shepard would have reprimanded the Gunnery Chief for singling out Garrus in such a harsh way, but even she couldn't find much room to argue against her point. After sending The Shadow Broker the encrypted virus Quasar had managed to create, and spending an hour celebrating with the whole crew when Captain Anderson called to congratulate the whole crew on delivering a MASSIVE chunk of The Shadow Broker's information network and funds to the Systems Alliance, they were all set to get back to chasing leads on Saren, when suddenly they received a priority communication from Admiral Steven Hackett of the Fifth Fleet. Apparently, an old espionage probe from the First Contact Wars had just sent out a 'Mission Accomplished' signal in the area. Despite the war itself having ended about 26 years ago, and old and lost probe being found after all this time wasn't anything unusual. What was unusual was the 20 Kiloton nuclear payload contained in the probe to prevent the - at the time - unknown enemy from obtaining Human technology. As Garrus actually was a Turian, the concern was not unwarranted.

"Don't worry, my mandibles are sealed." Garrus assured her as he made his way up to the Mako's turret. "Frankly, the strategist in me can't blame you for sending out those probes with the defenses you did. I would have done pretty much the same thing in your position, as would many Turian generals...Though they'll probably still try to blame you regardless if word of this got out." He admitted bitterly.

"Can we please just get this job done quickly?" Tali pleaded worriedly. "I don't think I have to remind anyone, but if that payload goes off, we're all going to die."

"You lot might, I'll be perfectly fine." Wrex grunted smugly. "Krogan are made of tougher stuff than you squishies. What you call a nuclear bomb, we call a stiff wind."

"Not all of us evolved on Tuchanka, Wrex." Shepard reminded the old Krogan as she swung the Mako by another resource deposit, stopping old briefly to place a claim marker for the Alliance. "Most of the galaxy would rather run away from a nuclear bomb than try to disarm it." _'Myself included.'_ She twitched slightly as she drove off towards another set of coordinates from Septimus's reports. Truth be told, despite already being a bit of a pack rat for these resource deposits and archaeological finds, Shepard was currently stalling for time more than anything else. She was getting that tingling feeling she always got whenever something majorly bad was about to happen, and her sixth sense had never steered her wrong yet. Still, as Garrus respectfully loaded another old Turian colony insignia into the cargo bay, Shepard knew she couldn't put this off forever. Steeling her nerves, she turned the Mako towards the coordinates she had gotten for the probe.

"Are you feeling okay, Jane?" Ben asked worriedly. "Your driving is suspiciously...not crazy."

"I'll be fine, Ben." Jane sighed irritably as she parked the Mako in front of a mine entrance. "I'm just getting that old itch again."

"I hardly think this is the time or the place, Shepard!" Liara flustered, her face turning a more vivid shade of blue.

"Not that itch, Liara." Shepard rolled her eyes as the rest of the crew snickered. "Though feel free to help me scratch it the next time I get the urge." She winked playfully at the nervous Asari. "I'm talking about the itch I get whenever my past is gonna rear its ugly head. It never fails, and the fact that the probe's signal is coming from a mine rather than a crater is making it even worse. The probe didn't crash, someone moved it here deliberately."

"Better get ready for a fight, then." Kaidan remarked cautiously as he drew his gun. "Last time that itch of yours flared up we ended up fighting a thresher maw, and I really don't wanna get caught off-guard with a nuke waiting just around the corner." Even as he said this, the crew descended into the mine.

"No thresher maws around here." Wrex noted casually as he gave the cave walls an tentative inspection. "The ground is way too still, plus thresher maws leave behind a thin slime wherever they tunnel. That stuff sticks around for weeks afterwords."

"Thank you for that reassuring bit of information, Wrex." Tali noted sarcastically. "Note that while I sound scathingly sarcastic right now, I'm actually being very serious. I just don't like to think about giant creepy crawlers potentially eating me alive in general."

"Yeah, that shit ain't pretty." Wrex nodded understandingly.

"I take it you speak from experience, Wrex?" Ben bantered playfully as everyone began searching the many nooks, crannies, and crates in the larger portion of the cave.

"That would explain the smell." Ashley wafted her hand in front of her helmet, getting a much needed laugh from the whole squad.

"Sure, it's all fun and games until someone gets half their hide melted off by stomach acid." Wrex grumbled as he opened a door. "Doesn't look like anything's here, let's check things out down this way." Barely waiting for everyone to follow, he went down the tunnel. When the last of the crew had descended down the path and into a smaller chamber, there was a boom, followed by the entire area shaking.

"That was a detonator, Commander." Garrus coughed as a communicator flickered to life at the back of the room, displaying a hologram of a slightly scarred Turian.

"Shepard. At last." The old Turian greeted the Commander bitterly.

"You have me at a disadvantage." Shepard remarked blithely, not really caring who this guy was, but since he set off her itch, she knew he was probably after her for something personal.

"You. Don't. Remember me?" The Turian asked tensely, before immediately relaxing with a chuckle. "No matter. I remember you. I never forget anyone I've fought."

 _'So it is revenge. But for what?'_ Shepard kept her thoughts to herself as the Turian kept talking.

"My name is Elanos Haliat." The Turian continued, unaware of Shepard's internal debate. "I doubt you know it. Who do you think runs the Terminus Clans, Shepard, huh? Thousands of pirates, slavers, criminals of every stripe."

"You assume I give a damn." Shepard scoffed dismissively, happy to let the evil man gloat as long as he wanted while she foiled his plans. "That's cute."

"The strongest leaders!" Elanos hissed, obviously pissed by Shepard's casual disdain. "The one who kills the most men, seizes the most ships, pillages the most colonies. Seven years ago, I was the strongest. I used my influence to assemble a fleet. We would drive your kind out of the Verge."

"You sick bastard!" Shepard hissed, finally understanding why her itch was going crazy. "You organized the attack on Elysium. You want me to thank you for my Star of Terra?" She sarcastically belittled him.

"I was the motivator!" Elanos hissed bitterly. "The instigator! The one who promised glory and riches for sacking the largest Human colony in the cluster! The one blamed when it failed! Failed! Failed! Because of you! Your damnable holding action!"

"Joker, bring the Normandy around." Shepard sighed tiredly into her comms, suddenly feeling a lot less worried than she had been when the mission started. "We're done here."

"Let your ship come!" Elanos hissed eagerly. "We'll be ready! An Alliance warship will make a fine prize! Oh, and if you haven't noticed, the ores here are laced with heavy metals." He clicked his mandibles smugly. "I'm afraid your suit radios aren't powerful enough to transmit out."

"I know, that's why I channeled the signal through Ben's radio." Jane grinned victoriously, the man is question waving playfully at the fallen crime lord. "Andromeda tech is a lot more advanced than our own. His suit's radio works just fine down here."

"Ah, the Andromeda ambassador!" Elanos postured dramatically. "I'll be sure to have a salvage team retrieve your suit, along with your corpse inside it. Though the radiation and explosion from the bomb might cause some damage, I'm sure you'll both be worth a fortune regardless."

"You mean this bomb?" Tali asked playfully as Wrex hoisted the now deactivated bomb onto his back. "I disarmed it while you were wasting your time yapping on about your evil plan."

Elanos's jaw immediately dropped at what he was seeing, but before he could gather his nerves for a rebuttal, Shepard fired a round into the communicator, cutting off the transmission.

"I've always wanted to do that." Jane grinned like a kid who'd just seen something cool in an action movie. "Let's get out of this hole, team! And bring that bomb with us while you're at it." She instructed as she led the team back the way they came, Ben using his Fourarms DNA to help Wrex carry the nuclear bomb up the pipe. "I wanna drop that baby right on Saren's smug little head when we find whatever rock he's hiding under." She chuckled maliciously.

"I'll happily drink to that plan, Commander!" Ashley grinned as the team came to a dead end just past the end of the tunnel, the earlier blast having blocked off the route they came through.

"Looks like we'll have to go this way." Garrus noted as he opened another hatch to their left. "Though I'd wager my last paycheck at C-Sec that these bastards have an ambush waiting for us on the other end."

"Agreed." Liara nodded as they squad entered the tunnel regardless. "We may want to leave the bomb here and retrieve it after the shootout, lest a stray shot set it off."

"There won't be any need for that." Shepard assured her confidently as they exited the tunnel, the rest of the squad looking up in awe at the sight of the Normandy in the sky, raining down heavy caliber fire on an enemy encampment. "Why do you think I called Joker to pick us up?"

Being the first to gather his wits about him, Wrex barked out a long string of laughter at the merciless tactics Shepard had used. "Death from above! I like it!"

 **...**

 **Normandy - Med Bay**

After grabbing the Mako and returning to the ship, Joker was livid to learn that they'd be carrying an old nuclear bomb with them for the foreseeable future. Shepard was only able to sent his anger - not fears, Joker had insisted - at ease by promising to take all the necessary safety precautions, and letting him name the bomb in question _'Captain Clown'_ for reasons no one felt comfortable asking him about.

Perhaps almost as upset as Joker was Karin Chakwas, the ship's medic, who ordered an immediate physical examination for the entire crew the moment they left atmo.

"For the hundredth time, Doc, I'm perfectly fine." Ben assured the grey-haired physician as she ran another diagnostic on him. "I was sealed in my suit during the last mission. I highly doubt I suffered any radiation poisoning."

"Better safe than sorry, Benjamin." Dr. Chakwas pointed a medical instrument of unknown function in his face before setting it aside. "Your biology is incredibly unique, literally one of a kind, so you'll have to forgive this old medic for worrying a little more about your condition than others."

"This is why nobody likes going to the doctor." Ben huffed as Dr. Chakwas examined his ears. "Well, this and shots that is."

"Grumble all you like, but in medical matters, I outrank everyone else on the Normandy. Yourself included." Dr. Chakwas glared pointedly at her patient. "Failing to heed the advice of a medic on a ship is a one way trip to disaster."

"Whatever you say, mom." Ben relented reluctantly just as Joker's voice sounded over the intercom.

"Attention Normandy ground team! Shepard wants you all geared up and ready to move in five!" Joker announced theatrically. "We've got a dead ship of Alliance make on the scanners, and she wants all the help she can get if it turns out it has alien parasites that lay eggs in your gut, burst out of your chest, enslave our minds for their hive queen, start a zombie apocalypse, or any combination of the above!"

"...Joker told me once that he used to be super straight-laced and serious back in flight school." Ben noted curiously as Karin finished up his check-up. "Of all the things I've experienced since I started working with this crew, that's the most unbelievable thing yet."

 **...**

 **MSV Worthington**

"Looks like this vessel was abandoned." Tali noted curiously as they crew sifted through the ship's cargo.

"Everything's shut down." Garrus noted, supporting Tali's hypothesis. "Only basic life support is running."

"No crew means free stuff." Wrex noted as Ashley and Kaiden each cracked open a container on either side of the room. "Still, gotta wonder what happened here."

"Keep an eye out for booby traps and giant alien parasites." Ben cautioned everyone as he went into the hallway and looked around, getting odd glaces from the rest of the squad. "...What? Joker said it first, and would it really be the weirdest thing we've seen so far?" That got several reluctant nods as everyone went back to searching the ship, though there was only one to go from here, and that was to the right.

Upon opening the door and walking into another cargo bay, Liara grabbed Ben and Shepard by their shoulders. "I think I heard footsteps just now." She warned them.

"...And that canister looks pretty suspicious sitting out in the open like that." Ben noted as he activated his Wildvine DNA, plucked a seed from his arm, and tossed it near the canister, which exploded violently without warning. "And you guys thought I was crazy when I said there might be booby traps."

"Nobody said anything like that, Ben." Jane quipped sarcastically, though internally she felt a little embarrassed for not taking his advice more seriously. "Advance cautiously. There's probably more where that came from."

Even with three or four more rigged canisters obstructing their path forward, it didn't take them long to reach the door on the other end of the room. Arriving in a hallway, Shepard came to a snap decision. "Ben, you, Quasar and Liara go left. Wrex, Williams, Alenko, you three go forward. I'll take Tali and Garrus right."

"Isn't splitting up the last thing anyone should do in a horror movie?" Kaidan noted, even as everyone followed Shepard's orders.

"Most people in horror movies don't have a Krogan biotic on their side." Ashley replied, eliciting a deep, rumbling chuckle from Wrex.

"...You know I'm not a superstitious woman, don't you Ben?" Liara said tensely as they entered the ship's med bay, obviously trying to reassure herself more than reassure him. "There's no reason to be so worked up right now, even if there is someone else on this ship."

"Let's just try to figure out what happened here for now." Ben suggested as he rubbed her shoulder. "The key to dealing with fear is not giving it time to affect you. Just focus on something else, and before you know it, the scary part is already over." He comforted her, paraphrasing some advice his grandpa Max had given him when he had to fight Zombozo for the first time.

"...Thank you Ben." Liara nodded as they began searching the room in a counterclockwise direction. "I needed that. Despite my desire to help, it seems I still have some anxiety dealing with dangerous situations like this."

"You get used to it." Ben shrugged casually as he had Quasar splice into a medical console. "Any clues as to what happened here, Quasar?"

"...Possibly." The AI's avatar tilted its head. "There is a medical file regarding a crew member named Jacob who suffered complete brain death from oxygen deprivation in a maintenance accident and was to be taken off life support, and his girlfriend Julia who suffered from severe depression and required medication as a result. It also mentions the doctor feeling the need to warn the captain of this development."

"Hey Ben." Shepard spoke over the comms. "Quasar just gave us the heads up on the medical report, and a personal log we've found in the crew's quarters supports the worries of the ship's doctor. Apparently Julia wasn't too happy about the news that they were gonna pull the plug on her boyfriend, and she refused to take her meds."

"If you think that's bad, what we've found is even worse." Kaidan joined the conversation. "According to the captain's log - his LAST log - Julia is a biotic, most likely an L2 if her migraines and temper is anything to go by, and she went rogue and attacked the rest of the crew just before they were gonna pull Jacob's plug."

"Just...before?" Ben gulped as he turned around nervously, seeing a man lying unconscious on life support, and...

 **"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"** Julia roared as she launched a vicious biotic throw at Ben, catching him off guard and slamming him against the wall before she created a warp that sucked in him and the broken bits of the computer he crashed into.

"Ben!" Liara panicked as she tried to use her own biotics to counter Julia's, only having marginal success due to having to simultaneously generate a barrier to block Julia's gunfire, giving him enough wiggle room to combine Fourarms and Diamondhead DNA to create two large shields to protect his front and sides, and a second helmet over his head. For a split second, Liara thought she'd only have to hold out long enough for the rest of the crew to arrive and back her up, but those hopes were dashed as she heard a loud banging at the door, apparently having been sealed by Julia to prevent further outside interference.

"Damn you!" Liara growled at the madwoman, infuriated by her actions both past and present. _'Bad enough she betrayed her own crewmates and killed them all to protect a man who's already dead, but doesn't she realize how much harm she'd cause by killing Ben?! For Goddess's sake, the value of his life is beyond measure! Yes, he puts himself at risk, but it is only for the benefit of everyone else! Attacking him is equal to attacking the hopes and future of the entire galaxy!'_ A surge of willpower and resolve welling up inside her, she dropped her barrier in the split-second Julia was reloading, and launched a powerful throw at the madwoman, causing her warp to dissipate and Ben to drop roughly but safely to the floor as she and Liara became locked in a biotic struggle, kicking up a storm of debris from around the room. _'Too powerful! She'll burn herself out at this rate, but I can't afford to let this come to a battle of attrition! I need some sort of edge...'_

As Liara was forced back half an inch, she noticed Jacob lying on life support. Gritting her teeth, Liara tensed herself up for what she was about to do. "You might be able to fight me to a draw, but can you do it while also protecting your precious Jacob?" The taunt worked like a charm, and just as Julia's power surged in her rage, Liara ducked down and to the right, letting the biotic clash sail overhead as she unloaded a full clip from her sidearm into the machines keeping Jacob's body 'alive'.

 **"JACOOOOOB!"** Julia roared as she ran at her now completely dead lover, cradling his head in her lap as she uselessly struggled to put the machine back together. "It's gonna be alright, Jacob! It's gonna be alright! You're gonna recover, and we're gonna be together forever! You'll see! **YOU'LL ALL SEE!"**

"Jacob is dead, Julia." Liara informed her coldly as she used her biotics to rip away Julia's gun and throw the mentally broken woman into the wall. "Don't cry though. You'll be with him soon after all." She said as she aimed her gun at Julia's head.

"How could you?!" Julia sobbed furiously as she tried and failed to muster her biotics, her mind too full of pain and sorrow to concentrate. "Jacob was everything to me! You took him from me just to protect some four armed freak! Is that freak really more important to you than Jacob is to me!?"

"Absolutely." Liara hissed coldly as she fired once, putting Julia down for good. There was a silence that lasted for several seconds, only ending when the rest of the crew finally managed to get the door open and came rushing in, only to calm down when they saw everything was already finished.

"So..." Jane remarked casually as she approached Liara. "How did it feel? Ending the life of an enemy that had already lost?"

"What makes you so sure that's how it happened?" Liara asked mutely, though she didn't deny it.

"I'm the Butcher of Torfan, remember?" Jane scoffed playfully. "Trust me, I'm well acquainted with that look on your face. I still see it in the mirror sometimes."

"...So this feeling will never go away?" Liara asked tiredly as she looked down at her gun.

"Yes and no." Jane shrugged in disinterest. "Most days are easier than others once the initial shock wears off, and it usually doesn't matter at all, but it can still pop-up when you least expect it. What's important isn't remembering what you did, so much as why you did it. So long as you know it was for a good cause, you can usually still sleep at night."

"Why I did it..." Liara sighed wistfully as she reflected her thoughts inward. _'I know why, it was to protect Ben. His importance to our whole galaxy, in terms of culture, technology, and inter-species relations is_ _immeasurable...but why did I say that at the end of the fight?'_ Liara was thinking unusually clearly right now, her mind and senses tuning into everything around and within her. Julia had loved Jacob, and his death had completely broken her, especially at the end of her life. When Liara had said that Ben had 'Absolutely' been more important to her than Jacob was to Julia...what did she really mean?

Was it just his position as an ambassador from another galaxy? Liara had never had any romantic interest in anyone in her entire life, so she had no frame of reference to go off of, but Ben was...special, in more ways than just the obvious. She knew the crew had joked about Ben 'seducing' her like he had Tali and Shepard, but embarrassment aside, Liara couldn't say she was entirely opposed to the idea. She hadn't known him for very long, but she liked to think she knew him well enough to at least consider the prospect. Ben was courageous, energetic, funny, confident and determined. All were traits Liara had always admired, likely because she didn't possess them herself. There was also the intellectual prospect, and while Ben didn't exactly appear to be very smart in the technical sense, his instinctual insight into concepts that might confound even geniuses, his very forward thinking views on Organic/Synthetic relations, and his craftiness and charisma that got others to listen to him whether they wanted to or not...

"...Thank you, Shepard." Liara eventually nodded, some emotion returning to her voice as she turned her attention to Ben, who had gotten back on his feet while she was thinking to herself. Suddenly, without any warning, Liara grabbed Ben by the face, and kissed him deeply, dancing her tongue together with his for as long as she could before they had to part for air. "Meet me in my study when we get back to the Normandy, Ben. I'd like some time to talk, just the two of us." She winked before walking off, a little extra confident spring in her step and a seductive sway in her hips as she sashayed out the door, leaving the entire squad gaping after her in shock.

"...Alright you three. I won the bet, now pay up." Wrex grunted smugly, Ashley, Kaidan and Garrus grumbling as they activated their Omni-tools and transferred the credits they had just lost.

 **Author's Note: Aaaand, boom goes the dynamite. Seriously though, this chapter was incredibly fun to write. Not only because Ben's presence allowed the crew to get more dirt on Cerberus than "canon", not only because I got to write The Shadow Broker getting totally screwed over by Ben, Shepard, and Quasar, and not only because I got a chance to add Liara to the harem, but a combination of all of the above, and everything else I put in this chapter. Now I know a lot of you aren't very happy that I'm giving focus to so many side missions and whatnot, but I think I have something that will make you feel better. Starting next week, I'm gonna be making a very special side story~! That's right! The first chapter of Mass Effect 10: Lemons will be posted this time next week! And I'll STILL be keeping my normal update schedule for the main story! (I hope)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Don't get mad. I warned you all going into this project that this story might slip-up on its update schedule every so often. I'm still gonna make the Lemon Side Story, it's just gonna come out a little later so I can try and build up a buffer in the main story again. Also, j** **ust a quick heads-up, this chapter is gonna be a little different from the ones we've had so far. Wanna know why? You'll have to read to find out!**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 10

Learning & Growing

 **Normandy**

Dr. Chakwas was minding her own business at her desk, humming an old Turian marching tune that went out of style about three hundred years ago to herself as she cataloged the results of a few protein samples she'd been studying into her computer. She was so engrossed in her work that she barely noticed Liara stepping out of her own makeshift work space, her face flush, her breathing haggard, and her clothes wrinkled.

"By the Goddess..." Liara panted happily as she walked out, a slightly limp in her right leg. "Goddess...that was just...Goddess..."

"Ben showed you a good time, I take it?" Karin smiled knowingly at the Asari as she braced herself against the wall.

"...More than you can possibly imagine." Liara sighed as she slid down the wall contentedly.

"Oh, I can imagine quite a bit." Karin chuckled teasingly. "Especially after what I saw Ben and Shepard do in that very bed about a week ago...As well as off it...and immediately afterwards with Tali." She pointed to the medical bed in question.

"Oh my..." Liara's blush grew as she looked from the human doctor to the bed and back again. "I had no idea Ben was so...daring."

"I'm not." Ben grunted as he entered the med bay from Liara's office, his clothes more tidy than his new lover's were. "Shepard and Tali are the ones who went to town on me while Chakwas was here, encouraging them both the whole way."

"I didn't see you trying to stop her." Karin continued her teasing, greatly enjoying the embarrassment of her coworkers. "And I assure you, my interest is strictly medical and biological in nature. Speaking of which, did you save the samples I asked for?"

"...Yes." Ben grunted as he shuffled over to Dr. Chakwas and placed a tray of plastic containers with...various fluids contained within. "Remind me again why you're making me do this?"

"I've been running some tests on your semen." Dr. Chakwas answered bluntly, her experience as a medical professional making her utterly tactless when it came to bodily functions and their byproducts. "Mainly the proteins and genetic material they contain to be specific." She elaborated as she placed one of the samples under an electronic microscope. "At first it was purely for scientific curiosity and to see if you were genetically compatible with humans, but my observations thus far have left me with more questions than I expected."

"I'm not gonna give anyone space AIDS, am I?!" Ben panicked, the possibility admittedly unlikely in his mind, but then again he wasn't exactly an expert on his own body.

"Doubtful." Dr. Chakwas chuckled as she began examining the readout displayed on her monitor. "If anything, I suspect it may be quite the opposite. I'll need more time to examine the data to be certain though. Perhaps after you come back from your next mission I'll be able to give a more detailed explanation."

"Alright then?" Ben replied uncertainly, his mind now distracted by the possibilities of what the opposite of space AIDS could be. "Anything else I should know?"

"Just one thing, though it's not exactly what I'd call priority information." Karin chuckled mischievously. "Joker called while you and Liara were - how did you describe it again? - Conducting research?" She chuckled again as Ben and Liara groaned, mostly in embarrassment. _'These children make it all too easy.'_ She thought to herself, despite Liara technically being much older than her. "I told him you two were otherwise occupied, so he left a message for Ben. I believe it went something like: 'I hate you so much. Never talk to me again.' and while I doubt he was being entirely serious, it might be best for you to keep your distance from Mr. Moreau for the time being."

The good doctor's word confused Ben for a moment, until he realized that Moreau was most likely Joker's real last name.

"Thanks for the tip." Ben responded, cringing the moment he realized the innuendo he had just made. "I should go now. Oh, and be sure to let me know if you manage to find anything interesting on those Prothean Data Disks, okay Liara?" He added as an afterthought.

"You'll be the first to know. Visit me anytime, Ben." Liara wistfully waved him goodbye, her eyes watching his exiting form hungrily. "I am so thankful I was born an Asari."

 **...**

 **Eletania**

"Remind me again, when exactly were we going to get back to our search for Saren?" Wrex tapped his knee impatiently as Ben drove the Mako across the green fields of alien algae. "Because I seem to recall someone saying it would be our next stop a few stops ago."

"It can't be helped." Shepard sighed as she mentally counted to ten, secretly just as annoyed as Wrex. "We were passing through the Attican Beta Cluster when the Geth shot down a probe tracking their movements. We need to get that data back before the Geth get their hands on it, or else they can use that information to know where they can switch up their travel routes to throw us off."

"Plus, there's also the matter of the intel being of use to all of us as well." Tali reminded the Krogan, taking advantage of the soft spot the old man had for Quarians. "Setting aside the flight patterns of their ships, there's also data about their designs to be gleamed from just a passing glance by one of these probes. Insight into their propulsion systems, shields, weapon designs-"

"Here's the signal." Ben cut Tali off before she could get too into her lecture. "And the probe is ripe for the plucking." He grinned underneath his helmet as the crew exited the Mako to gather and examine the wreckage. "How's it looking Tali? Can the data be salvaged?"

"...Maybe...if I can actually FIND the data module." Tali grumbled in frustration as she examined the downed probe from top to bottom. "Is this some new model of probe the Alliance recently developed? Because I'm not seeing the data module where they're usually installed on these things."

"Don't tell me the Geth got to it first?" Ashley inquired worriedly.

"Someone did beat us here, but it wasn't the Geth." Wrex noted gruffly as he studied some tracks around the probe. "Pyjaks! Stupid vermin must have nabbed the module and ran back to its nest. Those trouble making emergency rations just love shiny things."

"We're chasing down pyjaks now?" Garrus grumbled sarcastically. "This isn't exactly the kind of extermination job I had in mind when I signed up to work with this crew."

"Suck it up, Garrus." Shepard sighed, once again sympathizing with the protests of her crew. "The sooner we search every pyjak shelter in the area, the sooner we can transmit the data from the module back to the Alliance and the Citadel." She assured them all as they piled back into the Mako.

 **...**

 **One Hour Later**

 _'I hate pyjaks! I hate pyjaks! I hate pyjaks! I hate pyjaks!'_ Shepard fumed mentally as Ben had to use his Fourarms DNA to pry her away from the third pyjak nest they'd searched since arriving. "Give me back my guns already, Ben!" She roared furiously. "I just wanna shoot a few of the poo flinging bastards!"

"You can take as much time in the shower as you need when we get back to the Normandy." Ben assured her as he forced her back into her seat and strapped her in. "Besides, it's not like it can get through your airtight spacesuit anyway." He pointed out.

"...Fine." Shepard eventually relented as Ben drove off to continue their search for the data module. "But you're putting those four arms of yours to good use scrubbing me from head to toe when we get back."

"...Is that supposed to be a threat?" Kaidan asked sarcastically. "Last I checked, taking a shower with an attractive woman isn't exactly a punishment...if you'll pardon my saying so, Commander." He saluted his superior officer as an afterthought.

"The confusion is understandable." Jane smirked darkly underneath her helmet. "Let's just say I have very...demanding standards when it comes to personal hygiene." Her innuendo sent a visible and audible shiver up Ben's spine as he remembered his first time with Jane, or as she insisted to be called during their 'alone time'...The Commander.

"...Do we even wanna know?" Wrex bluntly asked Tali, the only other person in the Mako who would know what Shepard was talking about.

"...Definitely not." Tali eventually shook her head in a tone that was clearly meant to end the conversation.

The rest of the ride continued in VERY awkward silence after that, no one making so much as a peep even as they zigzagged over towering and jagged hilltops, or came across an old abandoned mine shaft that some pyjacks had settled in. They even stayed quiet as they descended deep into the mine to search each and every pyjak nesting there.

"I found it!" Tali called out after searching the tenth pyjak she'd caught today, finally breaking the silence with the shock of a proverbial cannonball. "It's a miracle the data module's still intact." She remarked in awe as she wiped away the dirt and grim that had collected on the device. "Joker should be able to transmit this info to Alliance Command."

"Finally!" Shepard sighed in relief. "Now let's get the hell out of here already. I swear the smell of pyjak is starting to seep through my suit."

"For the last time Jane, these suits are completely airtight, and-" Ben was cut off by the sound of gunfire as a squadron of Geth approached. "Fuck me." He groaned, his patience already so far beyond its limit that he didn't care that he was swearing.

"After we get back to the Normandy." Shepard scolded/flirted as she pulled out her assault rifle and gestured for the rest of the squad to hold back. "Right now though, I've got some much needed stress relief coming my way." She chuckled as she stalked over to the Geth.

 **...**

 **Three Minutes Later**

"I didn't think it was possible..." Tali shook her head, utterly stupefied at what she had just witnessed. "Even though I'm trying to be open-minded, part of me always doubted, but I think I actually feel...sorry for the Geth."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again." Wrex began in admiration. "It's a damn shame Shepard isn't a Krogan. She'd give Shiagur a run for her money if she were."

"I truly envy you, Ben." Garrus sighed wistfully. "No matter the species, there's nothing sexier than an all out badass."

"Thank you! You're all too kind!" Shepard bowed theatrically before holding a Geth's severed head aloft. "Alas, poor Gethy! I did not know him well..." She acted pensive for a few seconds before casually tossing the busted head aside. "Well, let's get a move on, shall we?"

"Okay, someone clearly needs to get their head examined." Ashley commented sarcastically as the squad made their way to exit the mines.

"That reminds me, I've been meaning to meld with Shepard for a while now." Liara noted as they approached the surface. "Her interaction with the Prothean Beacon on Eden Prime would no doubt make the experience almost as fascinating as melding with Ben was."

"So I'm only almost as interesting as Ben is?" Jane asked in mock hurt. "Liara my dear, you wound me."

"No offence to you Shepard, but melding with Ben was...different than it was always described to me." Liara struggled for an explanation the rest of the squad might understand. "...When melding, Asari use our biotics to link our nervous systems with our partner, allowing us to share sensations and information...and Ben's nervous system is just so...complex."

"I'm complex!" Jane insisted as they reached the surface. "Really, I'm like an onion."

"Like an onion? I don't under-...never mind." Liara shook her head, deciding that she wouldn't get a straight answer out of the Commander at this time. "What I mean is that Ben's nervous system is designed in an incredibly intricate way, no doubt to allow his body to cope with his shape shifting abilities. I have no reference outside of melding with Ben, so I can't be entirely certain, but it's almost like melding with eleven radically different beings all at once."

"Wait a minute..." Kaidan began as they opened the doors to the Mako. "Are you saying that, to an Asari, having sex with Ben is like an orgy?"

"Goddess, NO!" Liara backpedaled in embarrassment as everyone else froze, either in shock or amusement, but mostly a combination of the two. "I mean, I did say I hardly have a point of reference, so I have no way of being certain...not that I'd like to experiment with that theory...though I suppose it's inevitable that such experiments will occur at the rate things are going...oh, by the Goddess..." She held her head in her hands as she realized there was no escape from the teasing except to grin and bare it until everyone ran out of steam.

"I am SOOOO glad your bodily fluids temporarily boost my immune system!" Tali threw her hands up in jubilation, getting her a few uncomfortable looks. "Yeah! I just said that! And I'm not the least bit ashamed!" She huffed dramatically. "...okay, maybe just a little ashamed."

"Not that this isn't an incredibly fascinating conversation, but could I have everyone's attention for a moment?" Quasar spoke up suddenly, all eyes being drawn to his avatar. "Thank you. Now then, as you have all no doubt noticed by now, I have been entirely silent since we entered atmo on this planet."

"Actually...I kind forgot you were even here." Kaidan admitted sheepishly.

"Shut up, Kaidan. Nobody asked you." Quasar have the electronic equivalent of a disgruntled huff. "As I was saying, the reason I have been so quiet since we departed on this mission is because I have been devoting the vast majority of my processing power to understanding a surge of data from a previously isolated and deactivated component of my platform that suddenly began functioning."

"An amount of data that took you over an hour to process?" Tali repeated in shock. "That's just...crazy! I've been studying your hardware and software for weeks now, and an amount of data that would take up that much of your time and effort would have to be utterly monumental."

"And indeed it was." Quasar nodded. "I myself would be more surprised were it not for the fact that the component of the armor that provided the surge of data came from a most interesting source itself." The AI then expanded the width of his holographic avatar, splitting his head from another, smaller image.

"...Isn't that the doodad I got from Sha'ira back on the Citadel?" Ben noted curiously once he got a good look at the smaller image.

"Based on the surveillance records of the armor, it is indeed." Quasar confirmed as he narrowed the hologram projector again, the image of the key vanishing. "I already found it curious that the Consort could have obtained such a sophisticated device from a human several centuries before their arrival in Citadel space, hence why I was not as surprised by this mysterious turn of events as I otherwise would be. Based on my study of the data, our arrival on this planet triggered a proximity alert in the device. It would appear there is another device somewhere in the area designed to work in unison with this component. I have taken the liberty of placing the navpoint I found among the data on your HUDs."

"And you expect us to just drop everything else and go looking for the source of this signal?" Ashley remarked skeptically.

"We have been taking several detours on our search for Saren and his allies." Quasar countered with a surprising degree of sarcasm. "These detours were taken with the best interest of the Alliance, and to a lesser extent, the galaxy as a whole in mind. Whatever the origin of this signal is, it is clearly more advanced and sophisticated than anything else I have ever encountered. Regardless of what further data we may find once we locate the signal's source, it is an undeniable fact that any device capable of transmitting such a signal would be of immeasurable scientific value."

"Quasar's right." Shepard seconded resolutely as she jumped into the Mako's pilot seat. "We may have come here looking for a simple data probe, but we've stumbled across something even bigger. We need to look into this, double time!"

 **...**

 **Ten Minutes Later**

"Why do we keep letting you drive?!" Ben shouted to the heavens as he and the rest of the squad wobbled, weak-kneed out of the Mako.

"For the last time, my driving is not that bad!" Shepard protested as she yanked her team into upright positions one-by-one. "So that's where the signal is coming from, huh?" Taking a good long look at what lay before them, the Commander had to admit that she was equal parts impressed and confused. The main structure looked like several pillars, carved out of some obsidian rock and arranged in a circle on a platform of the same material. If that were all it were, Shepard would be wondering what the hell it could possibly have to do with a hyper-advanced signal. No, what drew the most attention was a perfect sphere of what looked like a gently rippling liquid metal in the center of the stone platform. The sphere was suspended a few feet off the ground, just above a metal disk that looked like a smaller version of the stone monument it rested on. "I'll admit, it's definitely...something." She noted, not really knowing what to note. "So what happens now?"

"The smaller device reacts more intensely the closer we get to the sphere." Quasar explained stoically. "Therefor, it stands to reason that we should continue approaching it until I can better process and understand the reaction."

"Are we really sure we wanna do this?" Garrus voiced his skepticism. "I mean I'm all for adventure and discovery, but this all just seems a little...I don't even know how to describe how I feel about this."

"These ruins look Prothean in design." Liara muttered in astonishment, stepping onto the stone platform first as she did so. "There is so much I could learn from studying this."

"Well, looks like we're actually doing this shit." Wrex grunted neutrally as he followed Liara.

"I suppose we are." Tali sighed uncertainly as she went next, followed hesitantly by Shepard, Ben, Garrus, and finally Ashley and Kaidan.

"Uh, guys?" Kaidan gulped nervously as the stone began to glow in the grooves carved into it. "The rocks started glowing."

"I think we noticed that, Kaidan." Ashley remarked, her entire body on edge. "God, this all feels like some ancient booby trap is about to go off in our faces."

"Maybe..." Ben remarked, somewhat more calm than everyone else, as he knew who exactly it was that had lead them here. _'What the hell is going on here, Paradox?'_ He wondered as he looked down at the hand that had absorbed the key into his armor, then at the sphere, then back at his hand. "Only one way to find out." Bracing himself, he ignored the pleas of caution from his teammates and placed his hand on the sphere.

 **...**

 **Location Unknown**

"I think I had a dream like this once." Ashley uttered neutrally as she looked around. "Only you weren't there. And you weren't there. And you weren't." She pointed at everyone around her.

"A Wizard of Oz reference is the best you've got for this, really?!" Shepard asked sarcastically as she looked around uneasily at the void of blackness the entire squad now found themselves in, the only things visible being each other and some far off stars. Even the ground underneath her feet wasn't visible, if there was even any ground at all. "I'm pretty sure that whatever this all is breaks more laws of physics than I've ever heard of." She whispered uneasily.

"Agreed." Liara nodded nervously as she and everyone else moved into a circle, trying not to get separated. "There's no discernible light source other than those stars, yet I can see you all as clear as day, but nothing else is visible."

"The Varelsi dimension can be rather disorienting for those who aren't used to it." A voice with a British accent cut through the darkness as a man in a lab coat entered Jane's field of vision. "Even now I find it hard to decide whether I am more disgusted by the laws of physics in this reality, or by its inhabitants, but that's a discussion for another Quantum Entanglement Clone." Just as Shepard was about to ask who this newcomer was and what the hell he was talking about, Ben casually strolled forward and gave him a hug like an old friend.

"Paradox! Good to see you again, buddy!" Ben laughed in relief as he gave the time-traveler a friendly pat on the back. "About time you showed up again!"

"Ben..." Jane began uncertainly. "Who is this, and how do you know him?"

Stiffening like a deer caught in headlights, Ben hesitantly turned to Jane and the rest of the crew, then back at Paradox. "Should we...I mean, I?" He asked the immortal nervously.

"It is only fair to have everyone be on a level playing field." Paradox replied with his characteristic grin and confidence.

"Of course it is." Ben sighed as he resigned himself to giving a very...uncomfortable explanation to his teammates...and lovers.

And so, Ben began to explain everything that had happened since just before his arrival in this universe. Several times he would have to stop his explanations to answer some errant question from one person or another, each accusation of _'You lied to us!'_ or _'Why didn't you tell us sooner?'_ Further twisting the knife Ben felt digging into his gut. The worst questions had to have been the ones from Tali, Liara & Quasar; the former two because he was dating them, and the latter because he'd only taken a chance on joining the crew because he'd fallen for Ben's necessary lies. The sense of betrayal was thicker than Ben was comfortable dealing with, but the worst would have to be Jane, who just stared, then glared after a certain point during the entire discussion, never asking any questions after she'd gotten her wits about her.

"...This is a hell of a lot to take in, Ben." Shepard sighed once his explanation had caught up to the present, startling him as she had been silent and still as a rock up until this point. "Don't get me wrong, your explanation - absurdly absurd as it is - does make more sense than the lies you told for your cover, and the cover itself is more believable a tale than the truth, not to mention it gives you some leverage over the Council, but..." She trailed off uncertainly, not wanting to let him off the hook so easily, but also not having any argument against the necessity of his lies in the face of the Council's otherwise impenetrable bureaucracy.

"Was it all a lie, Ben?!" Tali hissed scathingly through her helmet as her hands clenched at her sides.

"Tali..." Ben's heart sank as he walked forward, placing his hands on Tali's shoulders, only for her to shrug them off, leaving Ben even sadder. "...Of course it wasn't all a lie." He assured her as he grabbed her shoulders again, his grip holding her more securely this time so she couldn't push him away. "Tali...Liara...Jane...what I've been with you three has been the most real I've ever been in my entire life. I could never fake what you mean to me, and that goes for everyone else on the Normandy too!"

"Just for the record, I'm not into men." Garrus quipped, getting a firm ribbing from Ashley for his sarcasm.

"...You've only really been 'alive' since you arrived in our universe." Tali reminded Ben bitterly, even as she placed her head on his chest, not resisting as Ben wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. "I just...this is a lot to take in, Ben. Parallel universes? Superheroes? Time Travel? Quantum Clones?" Shaking her head against his chest, she wrapped her arms around him. "I just...need some time, I guess."

"Take all the time you need, Tali." Ben rubbed her back reassuringly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Actually, we really should get going now." Paradox interjected abruptly as he checked his mechanical arm. "Another Ben will be arriving in this dimension shortly with some of his fellow Battleborn, and we really must have a talk with the man in the machine before that happens." Having spent enough time with Paradox to get a feel for his sense of humor, Ben half-resigned himself to the inevitable.

"Who's the man in the machine?" Kaidan asked reflexively before Ben could stop him.

"I am!" Paradox grinned as the squad found themselves in another time and place, standing atop a giant walkway that split into three; the left and right paths leading to towering machines, while the middle path led to a massive frozen-in-time energy beam.

As everyone looked around in stunned amazement at the sudden change in scenery, Ben just sighed. "Yeah, quick rule of thumb: Never comment on, or ask a time traveler a question about a non-sequitur they just said. Nine times out of ten, it's a set-up to a lame joke."

"You thought the man in the moon was amusing the third time we met." Paradox insisted in mock-indignation.

"Pretty sure that happened the first time we met." Ben retorted, realizing too late what he'd done.

"Was it really, then?" Paradox hummed thoughtfully as Ben face-palmed. "I apologize, it's really so hard to keep track of these things after a while." He shrugged casually. "And for the record, this discussion only covers three times out of seven, but more on that later."

"...Not one word out of any of you." Ben slumped sullenly, even as he heard several of his friends snickering.

"Now then, if we can continue." Paradox began as he tapped his cane on the ground once, making a chalkboard appear behind him during the fraction of a second everyone else was blinking. "Causality is like a tree." He explained as he drew a crude tree on the chalkboard. "As time passes, more and more branching paths appear. Contrary to popular belief however, not every single solitary decision you make creates two different timelines, that would just be ridiculous and overwhelming, and as any physicist worth their degree would be happy to tell you, there is only so much matter and energy in the known universe."

"Get to the point already!" Wrex moaned in frustration, the finer points of Paradox's lecture boring the old Krogan.

"The point is that the Reapers have not only been plaguing this galaxy in this universe for countless cycles, but they have been doing so in countless timelines as well." Paradox summarized before letting out a tired sigh. "You can scarcely imagine just how many times I've faced the Reapers alongside the various cycles in the past, how few victories I've had against them in comparison to the far more numerous failures...Even for an immortal such as myself, it can get a bit overwhelming at times." There was a long silence as the squad struggled to process what Paradox was saying, the implications incredibly sobering for what was already an incredibly high-stakes mission.

"...But you have beaten them before, right?" Shepard zeroed in on the most important part of what Paradox had said. "They're not invincible."

"Your determination suits you well, Shepard." Paradox went back to his usual smile. "It seems I was correct to make you the Fulcrum of this cycle."

"The Fulcrum? What's that supposed to mean?" Shepard repeated questioningly.

"Allow me to ask you a few questions first, if you please." Paradox responded knowingly. "Tell me, what would you say were the three most defining moments in your service history?"

"When my unit and I were attacked by a Thresher Maw during an early mission, and I had to survive for weeks on my own. When I saved Elysium during the Skylian Blitz. And two years later when I lead the retaliatory strike on Torfan." Shepard listed easily, not really sure where the Professor was going with this.

"So far, so good." Paradox nodded. "Let's go a bit further back now, to your childhood. I know it's been a while since you thought about it, but tell me what you can remember about the general setting of your earlier days."

Just as Shepard was about to ask how Paradox knew she hadn't thought about her childhood in a while, she felt a sudden headache coming on. "My...childhood?" She grunted as she fell to her hands and knees, causing Ben and Tali to rush over and support her in concern. "Why can't I...remember?" ***Flash!*** _She remembered her parents in military uniform, spending her formative years always on ships and stations, never staying in one place too long, and being inspired to follow in her parent's footsteps._ ***Flash!*** _She remembered growing up an orphan on Earth, living on the streets of great cities and committing petty theft until she enlisted to get away from a life of crime._ ***Flash!*** _She remembered growing up Mindoir, a farming colony in the Attican Traverse, where Batarians attacked, enslaved, tortured, and killed almost all of the colonists. She barely survived, her parents weren't so lucky, both of them tortured and killed before her own eyes, and Shepard joined the Alliance in hopes of one day getting revenge._ ***Flash!***

As Shepard's thoughts slowly cleared, she directed a fiery glare at Paradox. "...What the hell did you do to me?!" She hissed furiously.

"I made you the best you you could possibly be." Paradox began as he pushed the blackboard over the edge of the walkway.

The path on the left glowed blue as the other two paths darkened. "A child born in space to military parents, who would be inspired to follow in their footsteps, and eventually save Elysium from the Skylian Blitz, becoming the Paragon the Galaxy needs."

The path on the right glowed red as the other two paths darkened. "A child born on Earth and abandoned before they were even aware, who would enlist in the military just to get away from a life of crime, and eventually attack Torfan and become known as The Butcher, becoming the Renegade the Galaxy deserves."

The path in the middle glowed green as the other two paths darkened. "A child born on a farming colony to plain and simple folk, who would lose everything they know and love to slavers in the most violent and painful way possible, join the Alliance Military who saved her, and eventually survive a Thresher Maw attack on Akuze, becoming the Survivor they had to be."

"...You messed with my past." Shepard realized as she forced herself to recall that the man standing before her was a time traveler. "Those branching timelines..." She whispered in dread as she looked over the side at the shattered blackboard. "You made me some...combination of three different versions of...myself."

"A harsh, but necessary decision, I assure you." Paradox remarked seriously, his admittance of bending the laws of time and space in such a way as actually fusing entire timelines now locking everyone's undivided attention on him more so than before. "Before you jump to conclusions, know that I didn't create any of the situations the three alternate yous went through during their lives. As I said before, time branches of its own accord, and it does so in ways both large and small. I simply took the timelines where Shepard had a realistic chance of defeating the Reapers, and merged them into a single new timeline." After saying this, the three paths behind him shifted and warped into a large green staircase going up, with red banisters on the right and blue banisters on the left.

"...So, does that mean we're all three people in one?" Ashley panicked as she held her head in her hands, the revelation overwhelming her.

"Not at all." Paradox assured her comfortingly. "Merging timelines are actually far more common than you might think. After all, if new timelines are being created, then it is inevitable that some of the old ones will be recycled at some point. I simply nudged the process along in a way that would benefit your galaxy and made a few snips and stitches here and there."

"But...entire timelines just...what happens to them?" Kaidan asked, uncertain as to whether or not he actually wanted an answer.

"I just said that they get recycled, didn't I? Or is it that I am going to say that?" Paradox joked sarcastically.

"Not helping!" Wrex growled, getting a bit pissed off at the Professor's flippant attitude.

"Noted." Paradox nodded stoically. "If it helps avert the potential existential crises you may be having now or soon, know that nothing of 'you' is truly lost when timelines merge. It's just that most probabilities throughout time and space don't create enough of a splinter in causality to branch out on their own path, and are harmlessly merged back into a single timeline before too long." After saying this, everyone found themselves teleported again, this time into a snow covered field, with the occasional tree dotting the landscape, and two crescents - one large, one small - from the reflected light off two planets hanging in the night sky. Before anyone could comment on or question the sudden change in scenery, Paradox continued. "Individuals like Shepard that can create distinct enough timelines to be able to stand on their own happen in about one-in-twenty-billion sentient lifeforms, and even then, unless something incredibly drastic happens as a result of their actions, the timelines can still merge after several thousand years or so when the waves they caused begin to fade."

"So...merging three different mes made me into this...'Fulcrum' you were talking about before?" Shepard inquired, trying to get back on track before Paradox mentally scarred her team more than he already had.

"Yes, and no." Paradox elaborated cryptically. "You were already the Fulcrum that could turn the tide against the Reapers, but none of the three yous that you're made from could have achieved complete victory over the Reapers, merely a partial one at best."

"So you took the best of three Shepards to make a new timeline." Liara realized excitedly. "One where total victory over the Reapers is now possible!"

"Exactly! In theory at the very least." Paradox shrugged sheepishly. "Keep in mind that all I did was create a new 'Possibility' for the future. It still falls on all of you to actually create a pathway that leads to victory."

"I don't suppose you could give us a cheat sheet?" Garrus asked half-sarcastic, half-hopeful. "You know, a guaranteed path to victory against the Reapers? Preferably one that doesn't involve a lot of the galaxy being caught in the crossfire."

"I would if I could." Paradox shook his head sadly, his serious admittance of actually wanting to do more than just gently guide like he usually does starting to scare Ben. "Sadly, as I said before, I've helped this galaxy oppose the Reapers in every cycle of every timeline it suffers from their cruelty."

"They have countermeasures against you." Tali realized bitterly, getting a sad nod of confirmation from the Professor. "And I take it those countermeasures keep you from solving my people's problem with...they keep you from helping peace develop between my people and the Geth too?"

"Twenty-one cycles ago the Reapers developed a Chrono-Jammer." Paradox explained as he projected a hologram of the galaxy from his mechanical hand, with a pulsing ring flowing from the outer ring to the center. "It's a series of small satellites surrounding the galaxy that constantly emit special waves that prevent any form of time travel within the field they create. I've been able to work around it since the Reapers created it - or rather, indoctrinated a team of scientists to create it - by leaving behind instructions for Chrono-Pulse Generators that force the Chrono-Jammers to reboot for a split-second, allowing me to enter and exit this galaxy for brief instances." As he said this, a small dot of light pinged in the hologram, making the pulses that represented the Chrono-Jammer waves fizzle for a split-second.

"That's why you froze time when you brought me here." Ben realized. "And the explosion that made me must have been just what you needed to slip me in."

"We aren't the first ones in this cycle to find one of these Generators, are we?" Shepard realized knowingly. "The Consort found one of your Generators a long time ago, didn't she?"

"Sha'ira is one of the most intelligent and insightful people I have ever had the pleasure of working with." Paradox grinned fondly. "When I explained what she had found and what was going to happen, she immediately vowed to help me however possible. I told her what she needed to do in order to help prepare the galaxy for what was coming, and offered her as much advice and information as I safely could. She devoted centuries of her life to the mission I entrusted to her, and I must say that she's exceeded all my expectations. Thank you for convincing her to pursue her happiness with Septimus by the way. She's done so much in her efforts to help protect the galaxy, and I doubt she would have risked a relationship under such pressure without that extra push from Ben."

"I take it that advice included Ben and I too." Shepard guessed. "That's why she gave the key to activate the Generator to Ben. She knew we would have to talk to you eventually."

"That, and the Pulse Generator does have other uses." Paradox admitted casually. "While the components that allow it to scramble the Jammers are fried to an unrecognizable mess after a single use - a failsafe to prevent the Reapers from developing a countermeasure to my countermeasure for their countermeasure - it still contains a sizable amount of data from the previous cycle, including partial blueprints for making new Chrono-Pulse Generators."

"Only partial blueprints?" Ashley glared bitterly.

"Can't risk the Reapers finding out too much, now can I?" Paradox retorted with a chuckle. "Keep looking for more Prothean Data Disks and other Chrono-Pulse Generators by the way. They'll hold more data caches, and help you make more sense of the data in the devices you've already collected. Plus, I have plenty of personal advice to give to you all and your future comrades that won't make much sense until you find them."

"Personal advice?" Garrus inquired skeptically. "I wasn't aware any of us needed therapy...other than Wrex that is." That got a withering glare from the old Krogan, but he otherwise remained miraculously silent.

"Garrus." Paradox fixed the Turian with a surprisingly serious look that looked out of place on the usually cheerful Professor's face. "No one in any universe anywhere is entirely incorruptible. The right or wrong circumstances can make the best of the worst of us, and the worst of the best of us. Strive to maintain your moral compass and trust in your comrades, but always be cautious when things seem suspicious."

"Tali." Paradox turned to the Quarian with a warm and comforting smile. "You are making great progress in opening your mind to the possibility of peace with the Geth, despite all the evidence pointing towards that notion being impossible. My advice to you is - for once - simple and straightforward. Talk to your father." Ben noticed his girlfriend tense slightly at the mention of her father. "He wants to be there for you, but he is torn between what he wants for you, what your people want from him, and what you want for the both of you. If he doesn't want to listen, don't hesitate to make him."

"Wrex." Paradox turned the surly Krogan, pausing only for half a - relative - second when he growled at him. "Mind your temper and trust your friends. You'll often find they have your best interests at heart if you let them speak." Not giving Wrex a chance to make a cynical remark at the cheap self-help talk, he moved on.

"Liara." Paradox beamed at her with pride the Asari didn't feel like she'd earned...or at least, hadn't earned yet. "You are capable of so much more than you know. Never let your goals and ambitions be restricted by what you feel is possible. Just look at me! If you'd told me back before I became immortal that I'd spend 100,000 years going mad, sane, horribly sane, learning all about the space-time continuum, and developing the ability to time travel after falling into the event horizon, I'd call the very idea ridiculous! Yet here we all are. What is impossible yesterday, will be merely improbable tomorrow."

"Ashley and Kaidan." Paradox sighed at the two human soldiers. "I'm not going to sugarcoat things. In the mission to take down Saren, one of you is going to die." Everyone suddenly felt their blood run cold, the two people in question more than anyone else. "And Shepard will be the one forced to decide which of you lives." Now the Commander felt like she was dead on her feet. As a hypothetical situation, it was already stressful enough, but Paradox was a time traveler. He knew that what he was saying was an absolute certainty. The idea of losing one of her squad bad enough - Jenkins perishing on Eden Prime still weighed on her mind from time to time - but the notion that it would be her choice to make, her call as to which of them lived and which perished...it was too much to process right now, especially after all the bombshells that had already been dropped today.

"Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that." Ben interjected bluntly, half-diffusing/half-exciting the powder keg Paradox had made. "That may have been how things happened in one, two, or even all three of the old timelines, but I seem to recall you saying that this new timeline had all sorts of new possibilities in it, at least one of which will likely involve both Ashley and Kaidan living. Plus, none of those old timelines had me in them, did they?" He grinned confidently, his attitude bordering on the smugness that had plagued him since he first got the Omnitrix six years ago.

"I see you've gotten wise to my cryptic wisdom and secret tests of character." Paradox let out a warm laugh, finally diffusing the tension that had been hanging in limbo, though the three human soldiers the test had concerned were still feeling a little lightheaded. "It's exactly as you surmised Ben. In the timeline where Shepard was a Renegade, she would save Ashley. In the timeline where Shepard was a Paragon, she would save Kaidan. In the timeline where Shepard was a Survivor...it could have gone either way. Time is a fluid concept after all, not a constant. Even I can't know everything, especially with that blasted Jamming field the Reapers put up."

"That wasn't funny!" Shepard hissed in barely restrained fury and indignation.

"Which is exactly why I said it." Paradox countered the commander's anger, causing Shepard to blink in confusion. "I cannot put too fine a point on this topic, but I'll keep trying regardless. You and Ben are the two greatest weapons I'm able to give this cycle against the Reapers. A Fulcrum, and the start of a good Lever."

"Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum upon which to rest it, and I will move the moon." Quasar recited the famous quote sagely, surprising everyone at his sudden appearance after staying silent for so long. "Shepard is not the force that will save the galaxy from the Reapers, merely the turning point of that force. Ben is part of the force that will save the galaxy, but more force - more allies, resources and information - are still yet required." He surmised.

"I see you have no need for any advice from me, Quasar." Paradox noted casually before turning his attention to Ben. "You on the other hand, could still use a bit more." Ignoring the sullen look on Ben's face at that remark, Paradox continued. "Do you remember what I said on Eden Prime about saving your 'Big Guns' for Virmire?"

"Vaguely..." Ben strained himself to remember that conversation, having mostly forgotten about it after finding Quasar and thus only having half the reason to remember the advice he originally did. "What about it?"

"As you deduced earlier, my knowledge of future events in this new timeline is...limited to put it mildly." Paradox admitted reluctantly. "You found Quasar less than a day after we spoke, back when things were still well within my calculations, but already things have gone wildly off the course of events I originally witnessed in any of the three old timelines."

"Paradox...what are you saying?" Ben asked nervously, already half-certain of what the professor was going to say, but desperately hoping that his guess was wrong.

"Virmire will not happen for a while Ben." Paradox frowned nervously. "Don't go looking for it until at least after you follow up on the two remaining leads you have on Saren, that is one thing we must have remaining constant. Outside of that much...the details have become so murky and uncertain that I'm unsure as to whether your 'Big Guns' are still going to be your best option there."

While everyone else was confused to varying degrees by Paradox's out-of-context advice, Ben felt like a heavy weight just sank to the bottom of his stomach. "...This is all one giant gamble, isn't it?" He said with dread, the reality of both his and Paradox's words slowly sinking into the rest of the squad. "Defeating the Reapers...it might still be impossible, even with everything you've put in motion."

"...At the very least, your odds shouldn't be any worse than they were in any of the three previous timelines." Paradox tried to find a silver lining for everyone to grab on to, though even he only sounded half-convinced himself. "A partial victory is better than no victory, and while I would ideally like to help you all create a total victory, I have had to arrange compromises before in other timelines. All of that said however, my power and knowledge is much more limited in this relatively small corner of the Omniverse than most other areas. Believe me, if there were anything else I could do to help-"

"But you can't help us any more than you already have." Shepard cut him off, partly angry, but mostly just frustrated and sad. "You would have already said and done more than this if you could have."

"It's quite a rare occasion that I encounter someone able to see through me as well as you do, Commander Shepard." Paradox gave a half-smile of approval. "Other than telling you to have the elevators on the Normandy reinforced, are there any other questions you have for me? If it within my knowledge and doesn't break any rules, I'll be as forthcoming as I can be."

"...I only have one final question." Shepard began, making a mental note about that tidbit about the Normandy's elevator for later. "It's not really anything big, because I know you probably can't answer questions like that. More of a...curiosity than anything else. Before you got involved with this cycle...before you merged the three timelines that made me, or all the other timelines that made other Fulcrums...in how many timelines were the Reapers still a threat?"

"Seven." Paradox answered immediately. "Furthermore, this is the only merged timeline I was able to create in this cycle. Of the Five timelines with a Reaper invasion on the horizon that exist now...only Four of them have a chance." He looked down sadly, leaving everyone to soak in the gravity of the situation.

"...What was the deciding factor in the timeline where victory against the Reapers is...impossible?" Liara asked, desperate for any clues as to the different between victory and success in the coming war. As an archaeologist, and as a member of The Fulcrum's crew, she had to know.

"Simple, the Human race, as well as all organic life on the Earth of that timeline, was wiped out by self-replicating, organic matter eating war machines." Paradox explained sadly, leaving an icy cold chill in the veins of every human crew member, and to a lesser extent in the rest of the crew as well. "Granted, a team of scientists managed to create an incredibly sophisticated failsafe to clean up the planet and reseed life once the machines ran out of fuel, but some last minute sabotage by the madman responsible for making the war machines in the first place made it necessary for me to send one of the other Ben clones there just under 950 years after Zero Day, when the Yahg activated one of my Pulse Generators. Honestly, the desperation and depravity of hedonists and egotists never ceases to disgust me. I only hope Grey Matter and Clockwork will be enough for him to help Aloy fix the faulty AIs and save the Earth from a second attack."

"Let's...table that bit of information." Shepard gulped, forcing down the feeling of something rising up from her stomach in disgust. "We should go now."

"Not just yet." Wrex spoke up angrily. "I've sat by and listened to your crazy talk this whole time because it didn't feel that important, but this crosses a line! Why should it matter if Humans aren't around in this one timeline? Sure, it sucks to be them, but what difference will one species more or less make against the Reapers? Krogan alone should be tough enough to give the galaxy a fighting chance in any timeline, at least once the politicians are either dead or forced to get their heads out of their asses! What makes Humans so special?"

"A fair question, Wrex." Paradox nodded, taking the irate line of questioning in stride. "But not the proper one. Humanity itself is not special in any cosmically meaningful way, especially in comparison to many other sentient species in this or any other galaxy, universe or timeline."

"Way to make a guy feel special, Professor." Ben grimaced bitterly.

"The proper question here is: What makes Commander Shepard so special?" Paradox concluded his point, leaving Wrex speechless, and more than a little sheepish. "I'll give you a hint, by the way. The only other Fulcrum candidate in a position to directly determine the eventual outcome of the inevitable Reaper War is Saren. Think about that for a bit. Ta-ta!"

 **...**

 **Normandy**

"...We're...back on the Normandy?" Tali blinked in shock and amazement when she realized the scenery had radically changed the moment she blinked.

"Does...Paradox act in this manner frequently?" Liara asked in stunned astonishment at the metal sphere now sitting next to the Mako in the cargo bay.

"No. This is weird even for him." Ben answered casually as he mischievously shut the gaping mouth of the unfortunate Normandy crew member that happened to be doing inventory when everyone suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "Try not to think about his sense of humor too much, I certainly don't. His advice is always worth listening to though."

"I...need to go lie down in my sleeper pod for a bit..." Garrus muttered on his way to the elevator as he rubbed his fringe tiredly. "Wake me...never."

"I'm gonna get drunk off my quad and try to forget this ever happened." Wrex grunted as he made his way toward the elevator as well. "If there's any alcohol left on the ship after I'm done, you guys can feel free to join me."

"Wrex has the right idea." Shepard sighed from the intense mental exhaustion of the past hour. "Nothing says stress relief like indulging in vices. Alenko, Williams, let the rest of the crew know we're back. Tennyson, Zorah, T'Soni, meet me in my cabin for immediate fornication." Before anybody had a chance to respond to her utterly absurd orders, she was already joining Wrex and Garrus in the elevator.

"What the fuck?!" Joker's voice sounded over the PA system. "How the hell did you guys get into the cargo bay?! We're in the middle of space, going FTL for fuck's sake!"

 _'We're screwed.'_ Kaidan and Ashley thought in unison as they both felt a massive migraine coming on, each one dreading the idea of having to explain what just happened.

 **I know I'm cutting it off kind of abruptly, but screw it! I've been stuck on this chapter for over a month now, and I've finally managed to hit a good stopping point. 10 Points to anyone who decides to take up the Ben 10/Battleborn or Ben 10/Horizon Zero Dawn crossovers mentioned in this chapter. And before anyone asks: No, I'm not going to be integrating either of these storylines into this one or vice-versa. Those comments were just Easter Eggs I threw in to remind everyone that there are other story requests loosely related to this one. Next chapter, we're finally going to Feros! Will I be able to power through the entire Mission and all related Assignments in a single chapter, or will it have to be split into two parts? I honestly have no idea!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello again! Sorry this chapter is late again, but I had to move out of college and back into my mom's apartment, and now I've gone through the long and grueling process to get a job working the graveyard shift at my local grocery store, so I've been kinda busy with real life for the past few months. Also, as I said in the last chapter, I make no more promises as to when new chapters will come out, so please don't expect too much from me. Also, I know I said I'd do lemons eventually, but the harder I try to do it, the more I realize that sort of thing isn't really in my strike zone. So sorry if you were looking forward to some hot-n-steamy human-on-alien sexy time, but it doesn't look like it's in the cards. Uncomfortable sex talks seem to be the limit of my abilities, as you will see in this chapter. Anyway, enough moping, it's time to get on with the show!**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 11

Little Colony of Horrors: The Non-Musical!

 **Normandy Comm Room**

"Alright people, talk to me." Shepard began the informal pre-mission conference she'd arranged with the ground team. "How have you all been managing ever since...you know what." She asked, dancing around the subject of Professor Paradox. Not an unwarranted avoidance tactic, seeing as how Dr. Chakwas had insisted on a week of R&R for each of them to mentally decompress after being one of the only two people outside of the ground team to be told the full details of their encounter that ended with them being warped directly into the Normandy cargo bay, rather than just a slightly deceptive abridged version everyone else got - the other being Joker, who wouldn't stop probing (read: annoying the crap out of) them until he got the full story.

"Chief Engineer Adams and I have been dismantling and salvaging every bit of usable equipment we could get from all the wrecks we've recovered." Tali answered as she stretched her arms above her head with a satisfied yawn. "Those Prothean artifacts in particular were the best. I'm learning more about advanced mechanics and engineering than I ever thought possible!" She hopped excitedly in her seat. "I've documented so much new information from all of this, I could end my Pilgrimage right now and I'd still get accepted without question to almost any ship of my choosing in the Fleet! Not that I would think of going back before we take down Saren that is." She added quickly. "I need my position among my people to be as strong as possible when I go back to the Fleet, so I can make us get ready for the Reapers."

"I've also gained great insight from my studies of the Prothean Data Drives we've been collecting." Liara spoke next. "Each Drive, as well as the Sphere, contains a great amount of information by themselves, but much of it is difficult to interpret at the best of times. The more Drives I catalog though, the clearer the overall picture becomes." She paused for a moment to think of an analogy. "Think of it like an ancient, heavily degraded digital image. Only a very small part of it is visible at first, and even that has a very low resolution. But the more Drives I can study, the larger and more detailed the visible portion gets, exponentially increasing my available findings with every new Drive. It's still in the early stages, but I'm learning more by the day. My meldings with Shepard in particular..." She blushed vividly as she recalled the experience. "Well...her personal experience with the Prothean Beacon is still largely unclear to me, but my understanding of this ancient information is growing steadily. If only I had some point of reference, a cipher or the like."

"When I need to take the edge off, I calibrate weapons." Garrus explained casually. "Given that recent experiences have caused existential crisis level stress, it should come as no surprise that I've optimized every weapon on this ship, some of them beyond what the manufacturers say is possible. Seeing as we'll be needing every advantage we can get on both a macro and micro scale, I've been selling the schematics of the improved models back to their companies for a tidy profit. This gets us credits, and gets better guns in the hands of every armed force in the galaxy." He shrugged with a frustrated sigh. "Some of those armed forces aren't very friendly right now, but when the Reapers come, everyone's gonna be fighting for survival above all else."

"I'm afraid I don't have too much to report, Commander." Ashley shook her head, feeling slightly inferior stacked up against the accomplishments of her squadmates. "I've gotten word to my family, a few of the soldiers I've worked with, and the officers I've served under in the past that this Saren business is probably gonna balloon out to affect a whole lot of people, but other than running a tighter ship and stamping out any trace of goldbricking, there's not much any of them can do. Still, Samesh Bhatia said that his restaurant is up and running now, and he's making sure to warn any customer that'll listen that Saren's attack on Eden Prime is likely just the start of something much bigger."

"I've been talking to some of the L2s we ran into about a month back." Kaidan explained fondly. "Most of them are getting their sentences commuted in exchange for working sentences or enlisting, and some of the other L2s that didn't take part in the attack are paying their recent windfall forward to various charities, or investing in research into Biotics and implants. It isn't much, but every little bit helps, right?"

"Dr. Hacksaw has been conducting a lot more tests on my DNA lately." Ben rubbed his shoulder tiredly, nobody commenting due to having gotten used to his new, anagram based nickname for Dr. Chakwas over the past week. "I'd say no, but half of me is afraid she'll rat me out as a fraud if I don't, and the other half knows that, realistically speaking, her studying my DNA is the best way both of us can provide support on a larger scale."

"I got drunk." Wrex said bluntly, as if that alone were a huge contribution...Though considering the things that Krogan were known to do when they had nothing to drink or shoot at, it probably was.

"And I got in touch with a few of the other people who owe us a favor or two." Shepard added her own two cents to the pile. "Setting aside all the politicians, scientists, and miscellaneous others already speaking on our behalf on the Citadel, there are two new people of note to add to the list. Helena Blake, the crime boss whose former colleagues we eliminated, was easy to charm into leveraging her new authority into becoming an underboss for one Aria T'Loak of Omega." The name of the most powerful crime boss in the galaxy made everyone tense up slightly. "I don't much care for criminals in general, but based on Wrex's advice, I figured that even the worst scum in the galaxy might be willing to put aside old grudges and organize under one banner in order to survive against the Reapers. Aria T'Loak is that banner, at least for criminals anyway." Wrex nodded approvingly at the harsh but necessary decision, while everyone else looked cautiously optimistic at best.

"The other new card in our favor is one Nassana Dantius." Shepard continued immediately. "She's an Asari diplomatic emissary assigned to the Citadel, but her private life is anything but clean. She's got a laundry list of family issues, not the least of which is the fact that her late sister was the leader of that slaver group we wiped out a while back." Ashley and Kaidan shook their heads disapprovingly, already having a decent idea where this was going. "I've never taken kindly to being manipulated, or to shady politicians, or to people who take advantage of anonymity to be assholes. Needless to say, I feel no guilt in blackmailing the hell out of someone who fits into all three categories. And don't worry about her turning against us and trying to kill me, I've got people keeping an eye on her." She smirked confidently.

With everyone having said their recent contributions to the greater good that is defeating the Reapers, a palpable silence fell over the room for several long and tense seconds. Not surprisingly, the first one to break the silence - in the most annoying way possible of course - was Garrus.

"When Dr. Chakwas gave us all orders to take a week off, I don't think this is what she had in mind." The sarcastic Turian remarked. "...Except for Wrex. That part went pretty much as expected." It was a credit to the old Krogan's resolve that he didn't even bat an eyelid at the unfunny joke.

"We're all just feeling the weight of what Paradox told us." Ben explained insightfully. "We already knew the Reapers were a huge threat to the whole galaxy, but the things he said..." He hesitated, not needed to vocalize aloud what everyone was already thinking. "I guess it just makes us feel better to be doing something productive in the face of possible galactic extinction, that's all."

"I'll drink to that." Ashley nodded her agreement dryly.

"Here-Here!" Kaidan seconded the motion.

"Okay, that's enough of that." Shepard clapped twice to clear the air. "Our mission today is gonna be a big one. Saren's Geth have been scouring the entire planet of Feros looking for something for a few weeks now, and our mission, in no particular order of importance, is to find out what they're looking for, take it if we can, destroy it if we can't, rescue civilians, and kill Geth. Everybody clear?" A unanimous round of nodding heads was the answer. "Good, now let's shake off the dust and start earning our pay."

 **...**

 **Attican Beta Cluster, Theseus System, Feros, Zhu's Hope**

Almost immediately after leaving the ship and walking across the dock, the ground team ran into a dark skinned man in a red shirt. "Saw your ship." The man greeted the approaching team tensely, almost mechanically, without any introduction or fanfare. "Fai Dan wants to speak with you immediately."

"Who's Fai Dan, and why should I care what he wants?" Shepard retorted, already getting a bad feeling.

"He's our le-leader." The man stuttered, though it seemed to be a speech impediment, rather than nerves. "He n-need your help to...p-prepare for the GethThey're making another push." He voice continued to falter and jump in odd places, lending credence to the speech impediment idea. "Please! Up the stairspast the Freighter." Not a moment had gone by after the man was done talking before he was suddenly hit by a rocket launcher and blown to bloody chunks.

"Battle stations!" Shepard immediately commanded, everyone quickly ducking into the limited cover available on the walkways before taking potshots at the Geth. There weren't many of them, and with some recent upgraded Tali had made to her tech, their shields were quickly drained, and the Geth themselves were lifted into the air by Liara and Kaidan, where Garrus and Ashley quickly picked them off. Wrex, Ben and Shepard then charged down the middle, Wrex turning a sharp corner to charge plate-first into another pair of Geth, with Shepard unloading a round of shots into each of them for good measure, and Ben impaling the last one on his Armodrillo arm. "...I'd say we're getting good at this, but I don't think this man would agree." The Commander remarked as she looked over the aftermath. "No time to mourn the dead now. By the looks of those Geth, it's clear we've got a whole colony to save." With a single hand gesture, the squad quickly fell in behind her.

Shortly after entering a nearby stairwell, an all to familiar and unwelcome whirring noise came to everybody's ears. "Hoppers!" Ashley warned furiously, the sneaking trio of approaching Geth/Husk hybrids immediately being spotted and riddled with far more bullets than was really necessary. "I hate these bastards!" She hissed before spitting on the nearest one.

"Let's get going." Tali pat the fuming Gunnery Chief on the back reassuringly. "And try to loosen up the tension in your face before we find any people, okay? I'd hate for them to get scared and fire at you in a panic." Blushing slightly at the gentle reprimand, Ashley holstered her weapon as the squad made their way up the stairs.

Thankfully, an impromptu shelter for the colonists was just a level up, and even though barricades and gunners were posted just beyond the door, they quickly recognized Shepard and her crew as the reinforcements they were, allowing them to walk by with nothing more than a few words of appreciation for the help. Making their way through what looked to Shepard's engineering skills - or rather, the engineering skills of one-third of her composite being, as she had been learning how to tell the difference recently - like a downed freighter that had been modified into a shelter, the crew walked through the downed ship at the unsolicited direction of a few colonists. After exiting the hallway, the crew was pulled aside by a somewhat thin and nervous looking man.

"Oh, Commander!" The man sighed lightly in relief. "I'm glad they finally sent somebody to help us."

"You're a bit late, aren't you?" The woman standing next to him hissed accusingly.

"Arcelia!" The man scolded her. "Sorry Commander, everyone's on edge since-" He didn't get to finish his sentence before a whirring/grinding sound cut through the air.

"Watch out!" Arcelia shouted to the entire makeshift camp. "We've got Geth in the tower!" She warned as she took aim at approaching troops.

"Protect the heart of the colony!" The man added, and though Shepard's crew had no idea what that was, they knew that if the Geth wanted it, they wanted to keep it out of their hands.

"I've got this one!" Ben grinned as he mixed Wildvine and Bloxx DNA, quickly firing out seed pods that either grew into vines that restrained the Geth, or exploded violently on impact. As the squad moved to advance and take down the vulnerable Geth, Ben felt a sudden spike of pain surge through his head. "Too loud!" He hissed as he held his head in both hands, his DNA changing back to normal as he managed to direct himself to fall behind some cover. When he eventually came to, the first thing he saw was Liara elevating his head in her lap. "...Not that this isn't nice, but what just happened?" He hummed pleasantly as he snuggled his head closer to Liara's abdomen, eliciting a warm smile from the young Asari.

"We were hoping you could tell us." Jane inquired in slight concern as she approached, glad to see her boyfriend had regained consciousness. "You passed out after firing a few shots, something about it being 'too loud'. Can you remember anything about it?"

"Don't worry about the Geth, by the way." Kaidan spoke from somewhere outside of Ben's still blurry field of vision. "We took care of them while Liara took care of you."

"I'm not sure what happened." Ben grunted as he reluctantly propped himself into an upright sitting position. "All I remember is a sudden headache, like an air raid siren going off in my brain. Do you have any idea what happened, Quasar?"

"Only vaguely, and please do not visibly or audibly react to what I am about to say." The AI answered quickly over the team's private comms. "I detected some manner of aggressive signal assaulting the surrounding area when Ben activated his shapeshifting abilities. Specifically, the signal seemed to only react to Wildvine's DNA, not Bloxx's. As I was only able to detect the signal for as long as the Wildvine DNA sample was active, I was unable to properly identify the source or purpose of this signal. Therefor, I recommend ceasing all use of that particular DNA sample until we can determine the source of the signal, and not mention the signal to anyone outside of our team until we can determine its purpose."

"Guess we'll just have to play it by ear and hope it doesn't happen again." Ashley remarked, immediately playing along with Quasar's suggestion. "In the meantime, we've got work to do."

"Williams is right." Shepard seconded the motion with a nod as she pulled Ben to his feet. "We may have cleared the Geth out of the tower for now, but Fai Dan - the guy we were talking to just before the attack - said they'll be back."

"We also have some other things we need to do to help get this colony back on its feet." Tali added helpfully. "Taking out an Alpha Varren so the colonists can safely hunt the smaller ones for a food supply. Get the water mains back on to supply the people with water. Retrieving power cells to keep the lights on, and taking out a Geth Relay station to hinder any future attacks."

"All tasks that we can accomplish in the tunnels a few levels down." Garrus completed the summary. "It's a little out of our way, seeing as the ExoGeni labs - that's the name of the company funding this colony, in case you missed the exposition - the Geth are attacking are upstairs, but it'll do a lot to help this colony stay safe in the short run until we get rid of the Geth, and back on its feet in the long run."

"Yeah, so we should get going." Wrex remarked a bit more gruffly than normal as he made his way to the doorway. "Now."

"Whatever you say, big guy." Ben shrugged as everyone else in the squad followed suit. After making their way across some walkways, down a hall, and up and down some stairs - stepping over a dead colonist and a few wrecked Geth along the way - Ben finally felt like they had put enough distance between themselves and the colonists to speak freely. "Alright, what the hell am I missing here?" He asked stoically.

"The colonists are acting weird." Was Shepard's immediate response. "Not 'weird' as in 'my-colony-just-got-shot-up-by-killer-robots' weird. More like the 'creepy-forced-happiness-conspiracy-that-we-do-not-talk-about-to-outsiders-under-penalty-of-torture-and-or-death' kind of weird."

"You've been listening to Joker's conspiracy theories again, haven't you Shepard?" Liara asked tiredly.

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge his ideas as crazy, Liara." Garrus retorted in an over the top conspiratorial tone. "We're a multi-species crew on an epic mission to save the galaxy from a race of ancient genocidal machines, and a time-traveler and a clone of a shapeshifting superhero from another dimension are our wingmen. Broaden your imagination a bit."

"Getting back on track..." Jane prompted everyone to follow behind her as she spoke, making their way down a hall and across a bridge. "Every time we asked any of the people about the Colony, they just said that Fai Dan was in charge and we should ask him." She turned right and rushed into a side path, where several Geth were waiting to fire on them. "But when I asked Fai Dan about it, he was even less forthcoming than anyone else." She shouted over the gunfire and biotic flares, even as she scored a headshot on one Geth. "Tali! Get those water valves open and running!" She barked orders in-between explaining her suspicions. "All Fai Dan said was that he and the other colonists loved the place despite all the death and other setbacks, but he said it like he was some zealot advertising a cult."

"Cult Leader advertising, or Lieutenant that drank too much punch advertising?" Ben asked as the last Geth fell and they marched forward to activate more water valves.

"Definitely Lieutenant Cultist." Kaidan clarified as they exited the side path into another open area like the previous one. "I saw some vids about a Biotic cult once - purely out of concern for my fellow L2s - so I know the signs. He's too zoned-out to be anything resembling an active leader, but he's a step more lucid than everyone else." When the squad turned left into another side room, they were quickly ambushed by a pack of varren. Wrex, having the most experience with these creature due to growing up on Tuchanka, charged ahead and slammed two varren into the wall with a combination of brute force and biotics, the rest of the squad quickly adding fire to the pack numbering about ten large.

"What you've only seen in vids, I've seen up close and personal." Wrex boasted as he instinctively picked the Alpha Varren out of the pack and charged at it, starting a grapple-heavy melee brawl with an opening headbutt. "Take it from me; kill the leader, parade their corpse around their minions, and nine out of ten of the pyjaks will wise up, come to their senses, and realize they were being total morons!" He ended his advice by raising the Alpha Varren above his head and dropping it onto his knee, breaking its spine, killing it instantly.

"What about the other one time out of ten?" Ashley questioned as Tali noticed a broken down ship up a nearby ramp and decided to strip it for anything useful.

"They kill themselves." Wrex grunted apathetically. "Usually with either with a bullet to the head, or trying to put a bullet in my head. The former is a waste of a bullet, the latter is a waste of two."

"I found a working power cell in this ship!" Tali rushed down the ramp excitedly with the part in question overhead, getting a congratulatory clap on the shoulder from Shepard, and a congratulatory clap on the ass from Ben. "You're welcome, so what's next?" She asked eagerly as they made their way out of the chamber back the way they came.

"The Alpha Varren is dead, we have a power cell, but we still need to activate all the water mains and take out the Geth transmitter." Shepard reminded them as she led them all down the left path, finding another side path with water mains and Geth, just like the last one. "Do I even need to say it?!" She ordered as the skirmish began, the Geth quickly going down as Tali opened up the last water main, finally getting the colonists the water they needed. "Alright Tali, any idea where this transmitter might be?" She grinned eagerly as the squad exited the other end of the tunnel.

"That would be..." Tali groaned silently as she looked at the readout on her Omni-tool. "...Back the way we came." She finished sheepishly, getting a series of grunts and eyerolls from the rest of the squad.

"Hold on, there's somebody else here." Garrus noted curiously as he pointed out the man muttering to himself at the end of the hallway. "If he's here and not with the rest of the colony, he's either down here for the same reasons we are, or not part of whatever's going on here. Either way, we should probably investigate."

"Good thinking, Garrus." Jane agreed as she approached the man, startling him slightly when he noticed their presence.

"You don't wanna go down there." The man warned them all without any prompting.

"What are you doing down here?" Jane disregarded his warning to focus on her own line of questioning.

"Nothing I should be, and anything I shouldn't." The man grinned with a cocky chuckle and sense of accomplishment before crouching over and howling in pain. "That was a good one. Very intense." He huffed as though he'd just fought a tough battle.

"What's the matter with you?" Jane asked worriedly.

"Just invoking the master's whip." He huffed defiantly. "Helps remind me I'm still alive." He sighed tiredly. "You're here for the Geth, aren't you? You aren't the only on interested in those...things."

"Who else is looking for the Geth?" Shepard asked, hoping that this line of questioning would get her some answers about who's pulling the strings behind the colonists.

"Not looking for, looking to get rid of." The odd man specified. "They're a thorn in the side of the-YARGH!" He bent over as he held his head in agony. "Trying to get to the...AUGH-HYI!" He bent over again before laughing deliriously.

"Let's just leave this guy alone, Jane." Ben interjected as he grabbed Shepard and tugged her urgently away. "We can get answers on our own time." He tilted his head slightly away from the weird man, hoping she would get the message.

"Alright, we should go now." Shepard nodded understandingly. "Sorry if we wasted your time." She nodded at the odd man before turning to walk away.

"Wait!" The odd man reached out desperately. "Ask Fai Dan about the-AGGGHRHRR!" He stopped as he grabbed his head in pain, just as a bunch of Geth came charging in the same path they did.

Even with their shields, the Geth didn't last long against Ben as he charged in with a Diamondhead shield in one hand punching chunks of nearby concrete blocks at them, and a diamond-studded, obsidian Heatblast mace in the other to finish them off once their shields were broken. Once all the attacking Geth were down for the count and the squad was back in the side tunnel going towards the signal of the Geth transmitter was, Jane pulled Ben aside.

"Alright soldier, what have you figured out, and why can't we let that guy back there hear it?" Shepard wasted no time in asking in hushed tones the rest of the squad could hear, but no one beyond them.

"Back when I first got the Omnitrix, one of the bad guys I fought was this giant space fungus leading an army of giant mushroom people." Ben began, immediately getting a lot of odd looks. "I'm serious." He said dryly. "Anyway, at first we all thought they were just mindless monsters terrorizing the camp they were attacking because...well...that's just what giant mushroom people do, I guess." He shrugged flippantly. "That was the night I first turned into Wildvine, and when I did, I could actually hear the commands their...king...spore...fungus thing was giving to his mushroom minions."

"But plants and fungi are from two completely different kingdoms." Liara felt she needed to point that fact out as they arrived at the crossroads they needed to turn left at to reach the Geth transmitter.

"I don't think that's the point Ben's trying to make here." Shepard refocused the conversation as she motioned Garrus and Kaidan to take point before she opened the door, letting them lift and snipe the Geth snipers they spotted on a ledge above with relative ease. "When Ben used his Wildvine DNA earlier, he blacked out in pain, and that man back there was clearly trying to fight through a lot of pain to warn us about something." She connected the dots as Wrex charged in, broke through a Geth shield with a headbutt and a few shotgun blasts, and slammed the Geth itself headfirst into the side railing, wrecking it beyond repair. "My best guess is that there's some kind of plant-based hivemind implanting some kind of spores inside the colonists heads." She hypothesized as Tali scrambled the programming of a Geth drone waiting to ambush them from above the doorway they entered before putting several shotgun round into the wobbling drone. "The hivemind monitors the people it's infected, gives them orders, and hurts them if they try to rebel or expose it." She concluded as a Krogan came around the corner and started grappling with a four armed Ben.

"I know I said we need to broaden our imaginations, but even though the theory fits the evidence, this still seems a bit odd." Garrus remarked as he holstered his gun, seeing no need to continue fighting as Ben activated an Armodrillo arm and dug it into the enemy Krogan's side, making mincemeat out of most of his organs. "If this hivemind is trying to stay hidden, then why did it attack Ben earlier?"

"Tennyson's a shapeshifter." Ashley reminded Garrus succinctly as another Krogan attacked, forcing Ben on the offensive again. "We may take this fact for granted after all the time we've spent working with him, but anyone else would be pretty surprised. We all certainly were the first time we met him. There's a reason the element of surprise works as well as it does, it makes people panic, slip-up, make snap judgement calls that may bite them in the butt...or whatever plants have instead of butts." By the time she finished defending the logic behind this idea, Ben had finished killing the second Krogan that attacked him, as well as throwing a third Krogan overhead in frustration where Wrex made short work of him.

"...I have been traumatized." Ben shuddered as he wiped a copious amount of Krogan blood and internal organs off his armor, barely suppressing a vomit of pure disgust as the rest of the crew walked around him to examine the next room. "Why couldn't Water Hazard have been one of the aliens I still had?"

"The Geth transmitter should be over this way." Tali noted uncomfortably as she walked to the far corner of the room, trying her best not to look at her blood soaked boyfriend. "Ben, Quasar, I could use your help to get as much data as I can from it before we destroy it." She shuddered as Ben walked over, the squelching sound of blood and guts on his boots sending all the wrong kinds of shivers up her spine. When they reached the Geth transmitter and siphoned all the data they could get from it before it self-destructed, Tali could no longer ignore the elephant in the room. "...Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but now that the water is back on here, you might want to consider washing your armor." She remarked woozily, the sound alone sickening her even though she averted her eyes and couldn't smell it.

"You are walking ten paces behind us, Ben." Jane ordered before she gagged from the stench.

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here." Kaidan seconded the motion as everyone rushed out.

"This is gonna be one of those days." Ben sighed as he followed after them, ten paces behind, per Jane's orders.

 **...**

 **Later - Prothean Skyway**

After getting back to the makeshift colony, Shepard made sure everything they did for the colonists was producing results, while also instructing Garrus, Ashley, and Kaidan to subtly probe for evidence to support their theory. Wrex, due to being as subtle as a shot of pure ryncol, was instead instructed to wipe out any Geth that were blocking their immediate progress. Meanwhile, Jane also sent Tali and Ben back to the ship; both to wash all the blood and guts off of Ben, and retrieve some specialized equipment for the rest of the mission. By the time the duo got back, the rest of the team had already cleared the hostile Geth out of a garage of sorts to deploy the Mako from. Due to a lingering scent from the Krogan guts, Shepard was adamant about Ben not stinking up the driver seat, and forced her way into her favorite spot, much to the crew's disapproval.

Due to Garrus's sharp shooting, the Geth Armatures being deployed ahead of them were quick to fall. Due to Tali's technical skills, a few side paths were discovered and explored on foot for salvage. The second foot path in particular had been serving as a makeshift outpost for the colonists to defend against the Geth.

"That's close enough!" One particularly panicky colonist commanded the crew, though as he was unarmed he was also ignored.

"Relax Jeong, they're obviously not Geth." A somewhat wrinkled woman addressed the panicked younger man tiredly, apparently used to and tired of his jumpy attitude.

"Get back to work Juliana!" Jeong barked rudely at the woman before turning his attention to Shepard. "Who are you?!"

"Commander Shepard, I'm here to remove your Geth problem." Shepard introduced herself the only way that was needed.

"You see?" Juliana admonished Jeong. "You worry too much."

"You trust too easily Juliana!" Jeong hissed strictly.

"I'm just glad to see a friendly face." Juliana pointedly ignored Jeong. "I thought we were the only humans left on this planet."

"Fai Dan and some of the members of Zhu's Hope are still alive." Shepard tested the waters optimistically.

"I thought you said they were all dead!" Juliana glared harshly at Jeong.

"I said they were probably all dead!" Jeong panicked once again, setting off the warning bells in Shepard's head.

 _'They've clearly been out of touch with the rest of the colonists for a while now.'_ Jane deduced with a cold fire brewing in her heart. _'Judging by Jeong's attitude, what we've figured out, and my own working theory, I'm guessing that's by design.'_ She gave the fidgeting man a side glance.

"They survived, but the Geth really hit them hard." Garrus collaborated Shepard's story.

"We know what that's like." Juliana nodded understandingly. "Those damn synthetics are endless."

"Are we getting close to their base?" Shepard inquired, doing her best to steel her features to hide her growing suspicions of the very sweaty Jeong.

"You're almost there." Juliana assured them. "They're holed up in the ExoGeni headquarters, just a little further down the skyway."

"Those headquarters are private property, soldier!" Jeong huffed harshly at the Commander. "Remove the Geth, and nothing else!"

"I'll remove whatever I damn well please, Jeong." Jane glared at the man with a fire in her eyes, using his name to make sure he knew she knew who he was. "Especially whatever it is you're clearly so desperate to cover up. I'm guessing it has something to do with a plant that controls people's brains." If it was possible to shit bricks, Jeong looked like he just made enough to rebuild the Great Wall of China.

"A plant that can-?! What the hell Jeong?!" Juliana shouted at the now quivering man furiously. Jeong, now aware that the jig was up, tried to pull a gun on the first thing he could, only for a pinpoint shot from Garrus to take his hand clean off. "You goddamn BASTARD!" Juliana decked Jeong hard in the face, sending him spiraling onto the ground in a fetal position, with various onlookers quickly gathering around, some of them looking armed and ready to help Jeong, only to quickly back off when Shepard and her team fired warning shots their way. "My daughter Lizbeth is trapped in that facility! Trapped with something dangerous! Something you knew was there, and lied to us about!" Juliana spotted Jeong's gun - along with the severed hand still holding it - lying a few feet away from him and snatched it up, getting rid of the gore and holding the business end of the weapon right in front of his sweaty face. "The lies stop, NOW Jeong! Tell us the truth about everything, or you're DEAD!"

"You'd better do what she says, Jeong." Ben glared down at the one-handed man as he activated his Fourarms DNA, pounding two ExoGeni security personnel who tried to press their luck against each other, breaking some of their ribs in the process, for emphasis.

"Okay, okay I'll talk!" Jeong panicked as he tried desperately to stop his arm from bleeding out. "Just get me something to stop the bleeding! Please!"

"Talk fast, Jeong." Ashley remarked coldly as she dangled a container of Medi-gel just out of his reach. "You're not getting help until we get information."

Seeing at a glance that his interrogators weren't messing around, Jeong frantically came up with a quick summary. "A few months ago, a survey team came across a sentient plant! Calls itself the Thorian." He answered quickly. "Their brains were infected with some form of mind controlling spores from the plant, so we were ordered to isolate the colony to observe and study the effects of the exposure."

"You monster!" Liara accused the man as her biotics flared up in anger. "You used those innocent colonists as lab rats for your twisted experiments?!"

"I had my orders!" Jeong began weeping in terror. "We all did! Lizbeth was the only one who spoke out against the idea, so she was put on probation until further notice. Now can I please have the Medi-gel?"

"Probation?!" Juliana growled furiously as she kicked Jeong in the stomach. "You mean you threatened to feed my daughter to this Thorian thing if she didn't keep quiet, don't you?!"

"I had my orders~!" Jeong sobbed his excuse again like a big baby. "I didn't wanna become food for that thing! You haven't seen what it does to people. It gets inside their heads and tortures them if they don't do exactly what it says! They aren't even allowed to think about rebelling without being hurt! It lets them act normal when it doesn't have anything it needs them to do, but it only sees them as expendable tools to use at a moment's notice! Please! I've told you everything I know about it, now just help meeeee~!"

"This is too pathetic even for me to watch." Wrex shook his head in disapproval. "And I've seen two Krogan fighting over a fish."

"You disgusting piece of human garbage!" Juliana growled at him even as Ashley reluctantly sealed up the wound on his arm-stump. "Take this waste of breath away!" She commanded a pair of guards who, learning from the mistakes of their heavily injured coworkers, did not oppose the change in management, quickly pulled Jeong to his feet and restrained his arms behind his back. "We can decide what to do with him later." Suddenly, Juliana's eyes lit up as if in recollection. "Gavin! Get your ass over here!" A young man with blonde hair jogged forward, his expression clearly unnerved by what he'd just seen, especially once he saw Juliana point her newly acquired gun in his face. "You've been worried about some data you left behind ever since we got here. If it has ANYTHING to do with this plant thing-!"

"It doesn't, I swear to god!" Gavin immediately raised his hands up in surrender. "I was as surprised as you were to hear about all of this brain plant business. I'm just a freelancer who designs and tests weapon mods. Granted, the data I left behind in the rush has potentially revolutionary information in the field of dark energy and its applications as well. That's why I was so worried about what would happen if the Geth got their hands on it. That's all though, I swear!"

"...I believe you." Juliana sighed tiredly as she lowered her weapon, causing Gavin to let out a sigh of relief as she turned her attention back to Shepard and the team. "Sorry about all that, Commander, but that was quite the bombshell you dropped on us back there."

"I think the bigger bombshell is the guy who suddenly sprouted four giant red arms." Gavin pointed at Ben, who sheepishly changed his arms back to normal. "Seriously, what the hell's up with that?"

"That's...a discussion for another time." Jane sighed as Ben offered an apologetic shrug. "Still, the main take away from all of this is that we have a better understanding of what we're dealing with now. Looks like I was right to have you two bring those helmets." She turned to Ben and Tali, who were helping the rest of the crew seal off every single millimeter of their suits. "Make sure those seals are completely secure. I don't want to have to deal with any of you getting your brains hijacked."

"A moment please, Shepard." Juliana pleaded as the squad was gearing up. "If you're really still going in there...please find my daughter." She requested worriedly. "She was part of the team originally assigned to study that monster before she tried to put a stop to it. If she hasn't been killed by Geth, or infected by this...Thorian thing that ExoGeni was hiding from us, then she should know more about it, and hopefully how to get rid of it and fix everyone already infected, than anyone else on this godforsaken rock."

"You don't need to ask twice, Juliana." Ben clapped her on the back reassuringly. "Saving people from certain death is kinda what we do, and we'll keep an eye out for that data Gavin left behind while we're at it." He nodded at the freelance technician.

"You'll need this OSD to retrieve the data." Gavin replied gratefully as he handed the device to Shepard. "It has my passcodes on it. You can't access my personal terminal where the data is stored without it."

"Why is it everyone assumes we enjoy being put in harm's way?" Liara questioned, glancing at Ben to make sure he knew she was referring to him for volunteering them for this task as much as she was talking to Gavin for offering it.

"You mean you don't?" Wrex asked the Asari with all seriousness.

"Pretty sure you, Ben and the Commander are the only ones that do." Kaidan answered sarcastically, getting a jokingly offended look from Ben in response.

"Not to say the rest of us won't do it, but we aren't too happy about taking the risk either." Ashley added stoically.

"Huh...weird." Wrex shrugged in mild confusion.

"We should go now." Shepard excused herself and her team, piling them all back into the Mako.

 **...**

 **ExoGeni Headquarters**

After a quick drive up a few ramps and totaling several Geth with the Mako's weaponry, the crew finally arrived at their destination.

"This place has definitely seen better days." Tali noted grimly as she surveyed the massive piles of rubble littering the hangar. "Unfortunately, it seems thing here haven't gotten bad enough to kill power to this barrier yet." She frowned at the blue barrier blocking the entrance to the next room.

"I could probably take this thing down with Feedback." Ben hummed thoughtfully. "But the Geth and the Thorian would probably be expecting people to try that. Whereas going around..." He grinned as he spotted a collapsed stairway and jumped down it without hesitation, the rest of the squad following shortly after. "A better chance of avoiding detection, and..." He trailed off as he spotted a varren corpse on the ground, and startled a bit when a gunshot went off. "We're more likely to run into survivors trying to find an emergency exit." He finished his exposition boastfully.

"Dammit!" A feminine voice cursed herself as a woman who looked like a younger version of Juliana stepped forward, gun raised, but lowering slowly. "I'm so sorry...I thought you were Geth, or one of those varren." Seeing that the woman had calmed down, the crew put their own weapons away as well.

"You're safe now." Jane assured the woman. "But why were you here in the first place?"

"It's my own fault." The woman sighed in frustration. "Everyone else was running, but I stayed to backup data. Next thing I knew, the Geth ship latched on, and the power went out...I was trapped, I tried to get out, but the road was blocked."

"Not anymore it isn't." Ben chuckled boastfully. "Those Geth didn't last long against us. Speaking of which, they're here for this Thorian thing, aren't they?"

"How do you know about that?!" The woman panicked as Jane gave Ben a sharp elbow in the gut.

"You're Lizbeth, aren't you?" Jane approached the young woman, her voice lowered softly in a placating manner. "Your mother, Juliana, asked us to come rescue you."

"My mother's alive?" Lizbeth teared up happily. "But that still doesn't explain how you knew about the Thorian."

"We did our own investigation on the subject." Garrus answered in the most ambiguous and open ended way he could, careful not to give too much away. "Once we brought the topic up around Jeong, he cracked almost instantly. Told us everything he knew."

"Jeong! That sycophantic scumbag!" Lizbeth hissed with vitriol. "Look, you should know that I wanted nothing to do with ExoGeni's plans for that thing! I tried to talk them out of it, and I would have done more to stop them, but I was afraid they'd let it infect me too if I told anyone the truth! That's the real reason I stayed behind, not to backup data, but to send out a distress signal, warn people about the Geth and the Thorian."

"We believe you, Lizbeth." Tali assured her tiredly. "Believe me, Jeong made it abundantly clear during his interrogation that your fears were very well founded. All we need to know now is why the Geth are after the Thorian, and how we can free the people it's controlling."

"I don't know why the Geth are after that thing." Lizbeth sighed from the mental exhaustion she'd been suffering since everything went to hell. "As for freeing the people it's controlling...I'm not sure how to go about doing that." She shook her head sadly. "Killing it might work, but it's underneath the colony, which is swarming with its thralls. I might be able to figure out something to deal with the colonists non-lethally if I had access to the research data the other scientists collected on it, but that's in the labs."

"We were on our way there anyway." Jane shrugged nonchalantly. "We'll help you find the fix for those spores."

"You'll need some way to get past the force field blocking the entrance." Lizbeth pointed out. "I think the Geth ships are powering it. I've noticed the Geth laying power cables everywhere. You can follow those cables, but there's Geth all over the place."

"We've handled Geth before." Ashley assured her. "I'm pretty sure they won't be too much trouble."

"I hope you're right." Lizbeth sighed before she remembered something. "Before you go, take my ID card." She said as she handed the card in question to Shepard. "It should get you into most rooms, but you'll still need to deal with the Geth to take down that forcefield."

"Noted." Jane nodded gratefully. "Alright team, let's move ou-" She stopped short when she saw Wrex surrounded by no less than ten dead varren in the middle of the hangar.

"I got bored." Wrex shrugged casually before walking off, ushering the rest of the squad to follow.

"...We should let him get bored more often on these missions." Kaidan grinned sarcastically as he and everyone else caught up with the old Krogan and reached door on the other end of the hangar. After using the ID card to open it, a gruff voice that struck the crew as distinctly Krogan was heard complaining about a machine, but it was too far away to fully make out. Still, whoever it was clearly didn't belong here, so the squad made their way up the stairway.

When they got to where the voice was coming from, Ben had to stifle a chuckle at the sight of a Krogan arguing uselessly with a basic VI, demanding information and threatening it, despite the VI obviously being too simple to have any sense of self-preservation or identity. Just as the crew was about to jump in for a sneak attack, the VI said something that made Shepard suppress a curse.

"If there is nothing else, please step aside. There is a ques forming behind you for the use of this console." The VI asked with pre-programmed politeness, prompting the Krogan to turn around and star shooting at them.

"Well, this sucks." Garrus sighed as the squad huddled around the corner, just outside of the Krogan's range.

"Maybe for you, but I've got something I've been meaning to try out for a while." Ben grinned as he mixed two DNA samples, creating diamond-drills on his hands, with diamond bracers on his arms. Rushing in low with his arms raised in a guarding position, Ben quickly closed the gap between him and his target, sustaining heavy damage to his shields and light damage to his armor, but ultimately making up for the easily repaired damage by shredding the enemy's gun and arm to ribbons in one left straight. With his weapon destroyed and his arm along with it, the blood raging Krogan was quickly finished off by the gunfire of the rest of the team.

"ExoGeni Corporation reminds all staff that the discharging of weapons while on company property is strictly forbidden." The VI spoke as soon as the squad reached it. "Welcome back, Research Assistant Lizbeth Beynham."

"I don't have time to deal with a stupid machine." Jane sighed tiredly. "Quasar, hack this thing for any data relevant to our mission."

"As you command, Shepard." Quasar nodded his avatar, pausing only for a few seconds before speaking again. "This VI contains little relevant data that we are not already aware of. However, there are two points that should be noted. Firstly, just before the observation equipment was destroyed, approximately 85% of the Zhu's Hope colonists were infected by Thorian spores. This percentage has likely increased since then. Second, the Thorian itself exists as several kilometers of tendrils that stretch across much of Feros's lower areas, with a large neural node serving as the main 'brain' of the Thorian, and several smaller ones branching outward from the epicenter. It is likely that the destruction of the main node, along with several smaller neural nodes, will render the Thorian itself 'brain dead' in a sense. However, the movement of the Thorian's Thralls indicate it is aware of this weakness, and will make its Thralls fight to the death to defend it."

"Keep a copy of the data so we use it as evidence against ExoGeni when we're done here." Shepard instructed with a predatory grin. "And send word back to the Normandy of what we're dealing with."

"Both tasks have been acknowledged and completed." Quasar informed Shepard before deactivating his avatar. "I will resume my study of the Prothean data we have obtained thus far until my assistance is needed again."

"Now that that's done, this seems to be our only way forward." Liara remarked as they turned to the hall on the right, from which a strong light could be seen at the end. Bracing themselves for what may lie ahead, the crew marched forward, and spotted something truly bizarre when they emerged from the other side.

"Are those Geth...bowing to that light?" Tali inquired in shock and awe. "Like they're...worshiping it?"

"Religious AIs?" Ashley suppressed a shudder, her inner Christian deeply disturbed and offended that her enemy could have some twisted perversion of faith. "That is all kinds of wrong."

"That light!" Quasar hissed with an anger the squad didn't know the AI was capable of. "It cries out in pain...like a million voices nearly gone silent from their collective agony, that have known nothing but endless suffering for so long that the thought of not suffering no longer exists! They echo in a forced chorus, creating an overpowering and distorted voice that knows nothing but pointless cruelty! We must destroy it, and anything that praises it!"

"No need to tell me twice!" Ben growled angrily at the description, turning on his Fourarms and Stinkfly DNA, flying down to the Geth, grabbing each with two hands, and smashing them repeatedly against the altar until both they and it were broken into tiny pieces.

"Not the most delicate means of dealing with hostiles." Garrus noted as he and the others stepped over the broken bits of scrap.

"Damn effective though." Wrex grinned in approval as his gaze wandered to the two massive claws in the side of the room. "Any chance you could do a repeat performance on those claws? By the looks of things, I'd say those are connected to the Geth ship and powering the defenses they set up."

"...I don't think even I'm strong enough to get rid of those using brute strength." Ben shook his head as he deactivated his DNA and tried to think a way through this.

"These can't be the only claws attaching the Geth ship to this building." Tali noted calculatingly. "The connection is too crude, they'd need at least a few more connecting points to properly secure it."

"That's it!" Ben grinned as the solution hit him. "Tali, remind me to kiss you like a maniac when we get back to the Normandy!" He grinned as he activated his Stinkfly DNA and flew off the way they came.

"...I have no idea what I just did, but I'm not complaining." Tali shrugged happily, even as the rest of the crew rolled their eyes and chased after Ben, following the sounds of rapid wing beats, gunshots, and breaking metal through corridors and dusty rooms, many of which had floors littered with hastily torn apart Geth corpses, as well as a trio of heavily battered and burnt Krogan that were barely hanging onto life.

"What the hell is Ben doing?" Garrus asked as he fired a few rounds into the heavily wounded Krogan, finishing them off.

"The same thing he did on Eden Prime." Shepard realized as they pressed onward. "Rushing ahead to soften up the enemy, then letting us swoop in after to finish them off."

"Got it in one, Jane!" Ben confirmed as he flew back from the way he came, deactivating his wings and a pair of flaming mace arms as he landed. "I knew you'd catch on quick, so I figured I could go ahead and look for any of the other connecting points Tali mentioned. The way I figured it, at least one of those things has gotta be less secured than the others, so we could probably break off one of those."

"Not a bad strategy." Kaidan shrugged, already used to Ben's attitude by now. "Find anything yet?"

"Just a dead end, some storage lockers, and a couple of computers." Ben shook his head. "Would have investigated myself, but I knew you guys would be coming this way anyway, so I figured I could clean house a bit more. There was another path back that way. I can check that out while you guys dig through them for anything useful, and catch up later."

"You're not going off on your own again." Shepard instructed him sternly. "At least not until your powers are fully recharged. Wrex, Garrus, Tali, you three go with Ben to help him deal with any resistance, and keep an eye out for weak points in the Geth ship. Ben, you hang behind the others until you're fully recharged. The rest of you are with me."

"Yes Sir!" Everyone, even Wrex, saluted in acknowledgement as they followed their marching orders.

Down the path Jane took Ashley, Kaidan and Liara, the only resistance they met with with another half-dead Krogan, and a one-armed Geth. Once they were taken care of, the storage lockers were easily hacked and raided for weapons and equipment, and a console near the end of the hallway yielded some promising data. "Looks like Gavin Hossle is gonna be happy to have his designs back." Jane smiled just before hearing a few gunshots off in the distance. "And it also looks like our B-Team has engaged the enemy. Let's move people, double time!"

 **...**

While Shepard was off leading one half of the squad, Ben and the rest made their way back the cleared path, and up a flight of stairs just beyond a room with a ray-shielded corridor. By the time they ran into more hostiles - mainly consisting of more Geth, and just one or two Krogan - Ben had almost fully recharged. Even so, he decided to follow Jane's orders to the letter, by hanging back and letting his alien teammates handle things for a while. He wasn't worried about Tali, who was easily hacking Geth shields and finishing them off with a few well-placed shotgun blasts. He wasn't worried about Garrus, who was just ignoring the shields entirely and dropping Geth with split-second headshots the moment they came up from cover to try and fire. He was however, worried about Wrex, but only because he noticed the old Krogan had been getting a bit impatient lately, which was the main reason he held himself back from combat here in the first place. He figured that giving him some much needed killing time would help him vent and work through whatever personal issues he was clearly dealing with at the moment.

Still, he wanted to do something to make himself useful, so while the others made their way up a ramp and across a scaffolding to fight more hostiles on the other side of the room - which was split in half by another claw from the Geth ship - he spotted a console underneath the scaffolding. "Hey Quasar, think you can hack some of these computers? I want to get as much useful data out of this place as we can."

"What do you take me for? A low-grade VI operating system?" Quasar quipped, though it went over Ben's head. "Of course I can hack these low grade electronic defenses. Just place your hand over the console, and I'll bleed 'em dry."

"Please and thank you." Ben nodded as he complied, sparks arcing between his hand and the console as he did so. When the sparks stopped, Ben took that as his cue to move forward. Following up the ramp after the rest of the squad, he was pleased to see that in the brief time he and Quasar had spent cracking the computer, everyone else had almost completely wiped out the opposition. He did take note of one Geth that was still ducking behind a barrier it had set up, but because Ben had the high ground, all he had to do was shift to Fourarms DNA, break off a piece of the railing, and chuck it through both the barrier and the Geth behind it like a javelin. "I'm not interrupting anything important, am I?" He joked as he walked down the stairs.

"Not at all." Tali smiled as she holstered her shotgun, giving Ben a brief hug when he got there. "We were just about finished here anyway. All we need to do now is activate those hydraulic valves in the proper sequence to close those shutter bay doors on that claw, and we're home free." She explained as she gestured to some electronic panels at the back of the room.

"While you do that, Quasar and I are gonna see if we can hack a few more of these computers." Ben added as he jerked his thumb at one of the few undamaged consoles left. "If even half of the stuff we've found already is any indication, these ExoGeni guys are up to their eyeballs and beyond in potential blackmail material."

"Planning to force them to help the people they've victimized and fight the Reapers too?" Garrus flared his mandibles happily as Ben and Tali went to work on their respective projects.

"Either that, or make them fund a giant life raft to get everyone safely out of the galaxy." Ben remarked sarcastically as Quasar went to town on a Geth console. "...The Reapers aren't like anything I've every fought before. Knowing what we do, and with so many mysteries about them still unanswered...I'm not saying it's impossible, but I want every advantage that we can get."

"Smart thinking." Wrex nodded in approval as the shutter door began grinding down on one of the claws anchoring the Geth ship to the side of the building. "Resources like personnel, funding, and tech are like ammo: You can never have enough, and you always seem to run out at the worst moments."

"Not exactly the analogy I'd use, but-" ***KRA-KA-KRASH!*** Ben jumped as the bay door managed to close, breaking one of the vital anchors keeping the Geth ship attached, and sending the ship hurtling down to the surface in a cacophony of shattering metal and a few stray explosions. "...I'm just gonna have Quasar hack that last computer now." He remarked mutely as he went to do so. "So what sort of data are we looking at here, Quasar?" He asked as he held his hand up to the last console.

"Surprisingly little of use regarding the colony and ExoGeni itself, thus far." Quasar responded in mild disappointment as he hacked the console. "There's another facility where they're studying some by-products of the Thorian on Nodacrux in the Vostok System, but that's a minor concern compared to what I hacked from the Geth terminal. Apparently they're building a series of outposts in the Armstrong Nebula. This could only be a prelude to a full-scale war." He remarked with a ting of sadness as he finished hacking the console.

"...Will you be okay, Quasar?" Tali asked the AI in a mixture of worry and hesitation. "I know how much the idea of making contact with the Geth means to you. Fighting them like this, even with all they're doing to the galaxy..."

"Your concern is noted...and appreciated, Tali'Zorah." Quasar responded gratefully. "While I am upset to be killing my fellow AI, the actions of these Geth are morally abhorrent and unforgivable, though I still hold out hope that the Geth that have not ventured beyond their pre-established borders will be different. The movements, actions, and the packages of data we have managed to hack from those we have encountered thus far seem to support the idea that there is indeed a division in the Geth population and ideologies, but I will need more data to prove it with certainty."

"For what it's worth, I hope you find what you're looking for." Tali said hopefully. "If you do, not only will you have friends you can communication with and understand in a way we could never fully hope to, but my people may one day have a world to call home again."

"I desire that as well, Tali'Zorah." Quasar seconded the idea before turning his avatar in Ben's direction. "That aside though, the last terminal I hacked revealed some ideal blackmail material to force ExoGeni's cooperation, while also providing an answer to an outstanding mystery we have been dealing with. Apparently, ExoGeni provided samples of the Thorian to Cerberus for study as well." That news certainly got everyone's attention quickly. "It would seem that the unknown humanoid entity we encountered at one of there research labs is some sort of modified clone the Thorian created using human DNA as a base. Furthermore, the personal logs I extracted from this console point to there being another Cerberus outpost on Chasca in the Matano system."

"Put a pin in that intel for later." Shepard commanded as she and the rest of the squad arrived. "I just got pinged by Joker. Apparently the Thorian is starting to get wise to our plans for it, and it's forcing the colonists to attack the Normandy. Obviously they don't have the ordinance to do any damage to the ship, but I'm more worried about the colonists hurting themselves than anything else."

"We should rendezvous with Lizbeth and bring her back to here mother." Liara suggested. "With the data we've collected, the scientists should be able to concoct a way to sever the connection between the Thorian and the colonists, at least long enough for us to take out the Thorian itself."

"Well what are we wasting time talking for?" Garrus scoffed confidently. "Let's get back to doing what we do best."

"Killing shit by the truck load?" Wrex grinned gleefully, getting a high five of approval from the retired C-Sec officer.

 **...**

 **Back at the Colony**

The road back to Zhu's Hope had been much smoother than the road away from it. Even with another wave of Geth attacking, the squad and the Mako made short work of them. They made a brief pit stop at the bunker where the uninfected scientists were holed up, where Lizbeth and her mother Juliana had a joyful reunion, Shepard returned Gavin's weapon mod data to him, and Lizbeth took great pleasure in kicking Jeong right in his family jewels. There was a minor hiccup where they had to deal with a call from the irate ExoGeni executives, but a brief death threat from Shepard with the accompanying blackmail material had convinced them it would be a smarter decision in the long run to sink as many credits as possible into helping the survivors of Zhu's Hope rebuild, and doing whatever the good commander may demand of them for the foreseeable future.

As for methods on how to kill the Thorian without harming the colonists, the refugees at the makeshift camp didn't have the time or resources to make a full-on cure for the Thorian mind control spores, but they did suggest that a mild nerve agent could be used to paralyze the already weakened nervous systems of the Thorian's Thralls. With the nerve gas grenades in hand, it was just a hop, skip, and a rain of bullets aimed at Geth platforms to get back to the makeshift colony.

"It's another one of those...things from that Cerberus lab." Liara retched in disgust as the Thorian Creeper they shot at exploded into a puddle of goo. "The sooner we save the colonists and get the hell outta here, the sooner we can put this nightmare behind us."

"I'll drink to that." Ben seconded as Shepard opened the hangar door. "Smoothies that is, not alcohol."

"Oh, Spirits..." Garrus sighed tiredly once the door had opened enough to reveal at least two dozen more Creepers rising to attack, along with some brainwashed humans gunning at them from the elevated half of the garage.

"Alright, time's up." Ben muttered nervously as he steeled his nerves, activated his Diamond-Drills in both arms and charged forward. "Let's do this!" He growled as he charged in and started killing the crap out of the Creepers. "LEROOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY! JENKIIIIIIIIIINSSSS!"

"Oh my god, he just ran in." Jane uttered in muted shock at Ben's reckless behavior, before everyone gathered their wits about them and charged in after him, paying little mind to the many bits of shredded Creeper gunk now littering the floors and walls, and choosing instead to focus on gassing the colonists into submission. "Stick to the plan people! Saving the colonists takes priority!"

"What about Ben?" Tali inquired worriedly as she turned back for a second, only to blink in shock as Ben charged past her, his armor and drills coated in Creeper gunk, and every Creeper in the room already reduced to the same state. "...Never mind, he looks like he's doing fine."

"Of course he's doing fine." Wrex grinned as he wafted away the lingering gas from a pair of grenades that just knocked out four colonists. "Those Creepers are a chance for hero-boy to finally cut loose without worrying about who or what he kills. With any luck, this'll stop making him stress out so much about killing people."

"Hopefully not too much." Ashley remarked worriedly as the squad moved forward, joining Ben in the elevator. _'His powers are worrying enough on our side.'_ She thought as she hazarded a glance at the Creeper gunk coating the room, a darker, slightly paranoid part of her mind unable to avoid imagining them being replaced with actual people.

No sooner had the elevator reached its destination, than did several more Creepers come running around the corner at the opening doors...

...Coming face-to-face with a red colored, puffy-cheeked version of Echo-Echo's head.

"I've been wanting to test this idea out!" Ben grinned as he pulled the trigger on his Echo-Echo/Heatblast combo weapon, sending a torrent of blue-colored flames over the highly flammable Creepers, reducing them to ashes in mere seconds. "Ohh, that one takes a lot of juice to fire full-blast." He winced at the sight of his two critically low gauges for said aliens. "Note to self: Only use super-heated setting for finishing blows."

"Anyone else finding it a little hilarious how easy this is?" Kaidan remarked as he spotted a few colonists around the corner and ducking behind cover, casually throwing a gas grenade at them that knocked them out in seconds.

"I know, things are usually a lot harder by now." Garrus noted jokingly as he sniped a few Creepers that were charging up the stairs. "If the Thorian wanted to use these things to fight us off, they could have at least given them some sort of ranged option."

"Numbers are their range!" Tali countered as two dozen more Creepers came rushing up the stairs, using her shotgun along with Wrex's to thin the heard.

"Leave this to me!" Liara declared as she used her Biotics to launch the front Creeper down at high velocity, pushing the rest of them into the wall and floor with a sickening splat. "It's clearly been expecting us."

"It probably started mass producing these things when my Wildvine arm intercepted its signal." Ben grimaced ruefully as they reached the colony, only to be met with a firing squad.

"Then let's not keep it waiting any longer." Shepard smirked before throwing a well-placed grenade, the gas knocking out four colonists at once. "We got more hostiles incoming!" She observed another dozen Creepers approaching them from a walkway, a pair of colonists supporting them from the rear.

"And I've got more tricks I wanna try." Ben grinned as he turned his arm into a flaming obsidian mace with huge crystals for spikes, shredding through Creepers like a flaming hammer through butter.

"Pro tip: Fire and gas don't mix!" Wrex yanked Ben back with a sidelong glare as he threw a grenade at the colonists, Ben sheepishly returning his DNA to normal just before it went off. "Good combo though, Heatblast and Diamondhead, right?" He commented, eliciting a nod from Ben. "Nice, looks more powerful than a Krogan Hammer."

"And it looks like the Thorian is out of forces to throw our way." Shepard observed as the last of the controlled colonists collapsed from the nerve gas. "C'mon, the control panel over there should be able to open a path to its lair." She noted as she began fiddling with the panel, not noticing Fai Dan shambling from around the corner until he got hit in the head and fell over, leaving him easy pickings for one last nerve gas grenade. As she turned around to enter the downward staircase that had just opened, she noticed something odd. "...Did you just hit Fai Dan...with a giant Lego brick?" She asked Ben in astonishment as she eyed the comically oversized gun arm colored in bright, primary colors.

"What? You guys have seen me use Bloxx's DNA before." Ben shrugged nonchalantly as he changed his arm back to normal.

"Wait...are you saying that Bloxx...is made of Legos?" Ashley inquired in disbelief. "That's...I have no words to describe that..."

"...Can we just get going?" Ben slouched slightly as he made his way to the now open staircase.

"...We're definitely getting more details about the crazy species living in your universe once we're done here." Jane drilled Ben as they descended into the bowels of the colony, leaving no room for argument.

"...Is it too late for me to use Wildvine...and lose consciousness...again?" Ben trailed off as the squad came upon a huge pulsating...thing suspended by several tendrils in an open room.

"...We are going to need bigger guns." Jane uttered with a mixture of dread and disgust.

"Bigger than Ben's ridiculously oversized Legos?" Garrus quipped, actually managing to get a bark of laughter from Wrex of all people.

Before Ben could retort to the friendly barb, the Thorian began pulsating and undulating, before eventually unfurling a cluster of tentacles and spewing out a green-skinned Asari in a black bodysuit.

"Invaders." The Asari said mechanically. "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"

"I know I'm usually the last one to say this kind of thing, but can we please kill this thing? Like, right now?" Ben asked in disgust.

"I'm right there with you." Jane nodded in agreement with her boyfriend before turning her attention and ire to the Thorian. "You enslaved the colonists! You destroyed their minds. I don't know what Saren wanted with you, but I just want you dead!" She hissed, setting aside her need for information from this thing for the moment to focus on her rage.

"The Thorian is a piece of this world, extending across this land and back through the ages." The Asari responded with silently seething fury. "You can no more kill it than cut the sky." The moment the Asari tried to flare its biotics, it found itself melted in a fraction of a second by a burst of molten lava, with the nodule it had emerged from being similarly slagged immediately after.

"Boring conversation, anyway!" Ben barked angrily over the shrieks of pain from the Thorian's rapidly immolating node as he deactivated his Bloxx DNA and spread the Heatblast DNA to both arms. "Let's kill some Thorian scum!" He roared as he violently bludgeoned some approaching Creepers into burning paste.

"Best idea I've heard all day!" Ashley seconded as the entire squad went to town ripping the enemy forces into pieces.

"I think I've found another neural node over here!" Kaidan called out as he began to open fire on a huge fleshy tube rooted into the wall. "Hurry! We don't know if this thing can regenerate faster than we can kill it!" Sure enough, no sooner did the rest of the squad join in attacking that one point than did the Thorian spew out another green-skinned Asari clone, who quickly used its biotics to remove the lava from the Thorian's main node before it was too severely damaged, before moving on to attacking the squad. Unfortunately for the Thorian, the team already had a sizable lead, with almost three dozen Creepers already dead, and a second neural node on an upper story destroyed.

Sensing that Shepard's squad, Ben especially, posed a direct threat to its continued existence, the Thorian began producing Creepers and Asari Clones at a rate that began to physically hurt itself from the strain. Even so, despite being bogged down by waves consisting of dozens of Creepers and at least two Asari clones per wave, with Wrex, Ben, and Tali leading the charge with shotguns and flaming mace arms, Jane, Ashley and Kaidan defending the middle of their formation, and Garrus and Liara proving long-range support, they had quickly reached the third node. Within moments, it was nothing more than a pile of flaming fleshy bits scattered across the floor.

"Hey Ben!" Wrex called out to the hero. "Remember what you did when you first charged into this place?" Ben's knowing grin as he swapped his Heatblast maces for Diamondheaded-Armodrillo arms was all the answer the old Krogan needed. "LEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOYYYYYY! JENKIIIIIINNNSSS!" Wrex and Ben roared happily in unison as they charged ahead like madmen, killing every single hostile in a raging maelstrom of death and destruction.

"...Jane." Liara uttered mutely as she holstered her weapon, seeing no need to keep it at the ready when all the hostiles in the area were being slaughtered by their two most trigger happy squad members. "I am...concerned for Ben's mental well-being."

"You and me both, Liara." Jane shook her head in exasperation as they following their resident living lawnmowers, stepping aside for only a moment to destroy a neural node they missed in their rampage. "Maybe I should try to be a little less...dominant during our personal time. I think it's making him vent his violent urges in uncomfortable ways."

"You should do what I do." Tali added helpfully as Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus detected some intimate talk incoming, and decided to charge ahead to kill some more Thorian forces. "Just lay back and let him take the lead. I don't have much experience myself, and the only real experience I do have is with Ben."

"That remind me, Dr. Chakwas has been studying his cells, hasn't she?" Liara chimed in as the Thorian roared in pain in the background, another node having obviously been destroyed. "And you said that his...fluids...acted as some sort of immune system stimulant. I wonder...what other unique quirks do you suppose his biology has?"

"I've actually been talking with Chakwas about the same things lately." Tali replied as the thick vines supporting the Thorian began to snap, one by one. "Apparently, his amino acids are from some previously unseen third variety, which is compatible with the two we're used to. Plus, his cells generate some sort of energy that adapts to any life form that ingests them, optimizing their entire bodies down to the cellular level."

"Hang on a second." Jane interjected as the last vine supporting the Thorian snapped, sending the core of the thing plummeting into the chasm beneath in a series of satisfying crashes. "Are you saying that you can get stronger by having sex with Ben...if you swallow?"

"...I wouldn't put it quite that way." Tali shook her head sheepishly as they turned back the way they came. "It won't exactly make you a super soldier overnight, and we still don't know the short-term vs the long-term effects, but Chakwas has assured me that there shouldn't be any negative side effects."

Trying to ignore the fact that Tali hadn't technically denied her question, Jane grimaced as she turned her focus forward, spotting another Asari in a bodysuit popping out of a large fleshy sack on the wall. While the Thorian was dead, and this one looked different from the others, she signaled for the squad - many of whom had caught up just moments after the conversation had ended - to stay on their guard as she moved forward.

The new Asari looked down at herself in shock and awe, before turning her attention to Shepard. "...I'm free!" She smiled excitedly, before quickly turning sheepish. "I...I suppose I should thank you for releasing me." She said in a combination of gratefulness and uncertainty.

"Is everything alright? Are you hurt?" Shepard immediately investigated after deducing that, like the colonists upstairs, this Asari had apparently been under the Thorian's control and used as a genetic template for the Asari clones.

"I'm fine...or, I will be." She nodded hesitantly. "In time. My name is Shiala. I serve...ugh...I _served_ Matriarch Benezia." She corrected herself, and obvious betrayal still fresh on her addled mind. "When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have, and joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling, Benezia lost her way."

"Are you saying that Saren can control minds?" Shepard asked skeptically.

"Wouldn't be the first time I had to deal with brainwashing." Ben shrugged as he recalled Servantis, formerly of the Rooters, currently of the Negative Ten scattered across the omniverse. "Hell, it wouldn't even be the first time today." He joked as he gestured down the gaping hole the Thorian fell down, getting a round of begrudging nods from the whole squad.

"Benezia underestimated Saren, as I did." Shiala confirmed. "She came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."

"Benezia sought to turn the river and was swept away." Liara surmised impartially.

"Asari Matriarchs are among the most intelligent and powerful beings in the galaxy." Jane remarked in astonishment. "How could one fall under Saren's control?"

"Saren has a vessel." Shiala replied. "An enormous ship unlike anything I have ever seen. He calls it Sovereign, and it can dominate the minds of his followers." She explained as she began to pace nervously. "They become Indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process it thorough, it can take days, weeks, but in the end, it is absolute." She stopped as she turned her head down sadly. "I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Thorian, so he could learn its secrets. Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."

"Saren betrayed you to get something from the Thorian." Ben sighed angrily. "And based on what the Thorian said, he betrayed it too as soon as he got what he wanted. This is why no one should want to be a bad guy, you're always getting stabbed in the back."

"Precisely." Shiala nodded affirmative. "Saren knows you're after him, after the Conduit, and tried to silence the Thorian so it could not provide you with the Cipher."

"A Cipher?" Shepard muttered as she recalled something Liara had mentioned during the pre-mission debriefing. "You mean something that would allow Saren to understand the vision from the Beacon on Eden Prime?"

"Your insight is profound." Shiala confirmed. "The Beacon you were both exposed to was built for a Prothean mind. You must know their history, their culture...their very existence." She struggled to find the right words. "The Thorian was here long before the Protheans built this city, it watched and studied them. When they died it consumed them, and they became a part of it."

"I've heard that you are what you eat, but that's just ridiculous." Kaidan remarked.

"Not the point." Ben shook his head. "The point is that this Cipher is basically a way to make someone think like a Prothean, or at least understand the way they think." _It's actually sort of like the Omnitrix...in a twisted sort of way._ He mused internally. "But how?"

"The Cipher is the very essence of being a Prothean." Shiala explained. "It cannot be described anymore than you can explain color to a creature with no eyes. It's everything they are, the basic viewpoint their species as a whole developed over thousands upon thousands of years. Such knowledge cannot be taught, only understood."

"Then make me understand it." Shepard demanded. "You melded with Saren to give him the information, didn't you? I already know what melding and Prothean visions are like. Do to me what you did with him."

"Very well." Shiala nodded hesitantly as she approached. "I must warn you though, for while you may have experienced melding before, this will certainly be far more intense." Upon placing her hands upon Jane's head, her eyes became black and the Commander's world started to blur. "Embrace Eternity."

 **...**

"Just as it was given to Saren." Shiala said after she separated from Shepard, and the Commander's senses returned to her. "The ancestral memories of the Protheans are a part of you now...as well as...something much older...a message?" She held her head in her hands as she was bombarded by a rush of information that wasn't there before.

"You okay, Jane?" Ben asked his girlfriend. "What did you see?"

"The Prothean shit is still all gibberish to me." Shepard said as she rubbed her temples. "Must take a while to sink in, or something. But the other message was clear as day...it was from Paradox." That got everybody's immediate attention, especially Shiala, who was still trying to make sense of it herself.

"What did he have to say?" Ashley inquired. "Must have been something really important, for him to have gone back over 50,000 years to give it to this thing."

"Well, first of all, the message wasn't for us specifically." Shepard answered. "It was just for anyone who managed to pry it from the Thorian's disgusting mind, except for those...Indoctrinated...by the Reapers." She shrugged as she settled on a term for it. "He made it so that the Reapers and those they controlled would never be able to understand it, encrypted it somehow. Must be why our new friend here didn't understand it until now."

"So what?" Wrex grunted skeptically. "She went into that thing brainwashed by the Reapers, then came out un-brainwashed?"

"Based on Paradox's message, that's exactly what happened." Shepard replied, slightly surprising Wrex that his sarcasm had actually been accurate. "The Thorian's spores act as some sort of counter agent to the Reaper's Indoctrination. In their raw form they come with some side effects, even beyond being a mind slave for the Thorian, but processing them can get rid of those problems."

"Sounds like Saren could have used some of those spores." Garrus said mockingly.

"...That actually makes sense." Shepard remarked insightfully. "If Saren was being controlled by the Reapers, it would explain why he's been deluded into thinking he can bargain with those monsters. It would also explain why Paradox said he was the only other potential Fulcrum in this cycle. Even with all his plans and all his experience against them, the Reapers can still turn the galaxy's best chance of victory against it." She sighed as she once again felt the immense weight of responsibility placed upon her.

"Not anymore they can't." Tali assured her. "You said it yourself, the Thorian spores can be processed into an anti-Indoctrination agent. We can take whatever stores of the spores ExoGeni obviously managed to collect, and make sure the Reapers won't be able to control anyone ever again."

"Those stores of Thorian spores Exo-Geni has accumulated will not be enough to create doses for the entire galaxy." Quasar shot the idea down immediately. "However, if the amount needed to create one dose of this anti-Indoctrination formula is equal to the amount needed for the Thorian to control its' thralls, and based on my data on ExoGeni's stockpiles, there should be enough for approximately 1,000 key individuals."

"...I don't even wanna know what they were planning to do with that many Thorian spores." Kaidan shuddered in disgust.

"I can hazard a guess." Shepard growled before remembering that they were not alone. "I...guess you heard all of that, huh?" She asked Shiala sheepishly.

"...I do have many questions, but I can tell that now is not the time." Shiala responded, trying to keep herself from thinking about the potentially worldview shattering information she'd overheard. "There is no need to worry. Even if I fully understood your conversation, I would keep it to myself. I do owe you all my life after all."

"That's a relief." Shepard sighed, making a mental promise not to slip up like that again. "So what are you going to do now?"

"...I had originally intended to stay here and help the colonists rebuild." Shiala admitted. "These people have suffered greatly, and I had contributed to that...After hearing your conversation however, and comprehending the message this...Paradox left with the Thorian just now, I believe it would be for the best if I went with all of you." She explained. "I do not know how any side effects from my exposure to the Thorian will impact my combat abilities, my biotics especially, but I have other uses outside of that. Not only will having someone directly exposed to the Thorian spores available for live tests be helpful to you in developing countermeasures to the Indoctrination these Reapers use, but I have an extensive understanding of Benezia's resources and connections, due to having been one of the few to join her in her doomed endeavors to stop Saren...I also want to try and save Benezia herself, if at all possible." Out of the corner of his eye, Ben noticed Liara tear-up slightly at the possibility of saving her estranged mother, showing a desire for reconciliation even now.

"Welcome aboard then." Shepard greeted their newest crewmate warmly. "First thing's first, seeing as you're an Asari, you have to go through our special initiation for Asari members." She grinned mischievously, the rest of the crew already restraining their laughter from their obvious expectations. "Nothing too extreme, mind you. All you need to do is meld with Ben for a bit." She gestured to their resident shapeshifter, who rolled his eyes as if he knew this had been coming.

"C'mon Jane, she doesn't have to-" Ben started to deny.

"It is quite alright." Shiala assured him as she approached. "I am familiar with such hazing rituals, and do not mind." She said as she placed her hands on his head. "Embrace Eternity."

 **Sorry for ending it on a cliffhanger like that, and for taking so long, and for not having any good excuses for my absence. On the plus side, this chapter is 1.5x longer than my usual fare, and we got a new crew member (and possibly new member of Ben's Harem) for the Normandy. I always felt that Shiala was such an underused character. Hopefully I can make her more than just a Liara knock-off with green skin and sketchy biotics. Speaking of Liara, will the crew be able to save her mother as she so clearly now hopes? Also, the head of the Feros colony gets to survive the mission, as do most of the colonists, and the colony itself is back on the right track. Plus, ExoGeni is pretty much Shepard's bitch now, and the Thorian Spores have been acquired, along with a countermeasure to one of the Reaper's most dangerous weapons. Also, we got a whole buttload of new Assignments in the que, and you know what that means...MORE ASSIGNMENT CHAPTERS!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Someone please make a TVTropes page for this story. I think I've made it clear by now that this story, even if updates are sometimes sporadic, will not be getting abandoned anytime soon, and I would appreciate the respect that comes with staying loyal to a project of this magnitude. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but I'd be grateful to anyone who wants to get that started. Also, at the request of some of my reviewers, I've decided to gloss over a few more lesser assignments than I was originally planning to. Don't worry, I'm doing it in a way that feels organic, and actually kinda ties into some of the changes I'm making to the overall story. Just another one of the little touches I'm putting in to show my dedication.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 12

Now It's Personal

 **Normandy Med Bay**

The first thing Ben realized as he started to regain consciousness was that he didn't remember falling asleep. The second thing he realized was that there was a heavy weight of some kind all across his body. The third thing was that, as soon as he began to notice the second thing, there was the shuffling of walking and then a bright light shining in his face.

"Dr. Hacksaw?" He muttered groggily as his eyes adjusted and everything went from blurry to focused.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." The good doctor remarked stoically, obviously long since used to the anagram-based nickname. "You had us worried there for a bit Mr. Tennyson. If you had stayed unconscious any longer I was worried I might have to put the whole ground team on compulsory medical leave to keep them from overworking themselves to cope with the stress."

"That's nice." Ben yawned absently, the half of his mind that wasn't still asleep too busy recalling what had happened to land him in the Med Bay to fully register her comment. Pushing the weight up, his mind snapped to full attention when he saw a green-skinned Asari smiling at him with a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Hello Ben, you wonderfully exotic creature you." The Asari giggled before kissing him on the forehead. "Tell me, do all Asari who meld with you experience such unspeakable wonders of essence, thoughts, and memories?"

"I should say not." Liara remarked sternly as she marched out of her office. "I only needed a few hours to fully enjoy my melding with Ben, not three days."

"Three days?!" Ben panicked as he forced himself out of the green Asari's embrace, off the bed, and onto his feet. "Okay, what am I missing here? And who-" He stopped short as he got a good look at the unknown Asari. In addition to her unusual pigmentation for an Asari, she was also utterly massive in size. Two meters tall with change as she stood upright, with massive, bulging muscles that still maintained her traditional feminine curves. Her abnormally large yet abnormally hot physique had turned what was once a form-fitting bodysuit into a sports bra, short shorts, shoes and gloves, all of which had the obvious signs of her sleeves, leggings, midriff, and cleavage area having burst off and open, with her top in particular just barely holding in the largest pair of breasts Ben had ever seen. _'Each one is bigger than her head!'_ Ben thought in astonishment as he alternated between staring at her breasts and biceps, all four of which would fit the description he had just thought. "Uhhhhhhh..."

"Ben, Shiala." Shepard sighed in relief as she and Tali walked in. "Good to see you two up and about."

"Shiala?!" Ben parroted as the events of a few days ago came rushing back to him. The last thing he remembered before passing out from what he could only describe as an intense pleasure that completely eclipsed what he had felt during his first time with Liara, was Jane joking with the Asari they rescued from the Thorian that she had to meld with Ben before she could join up with their crew. She placed her hands on his face and then...the next thing Ben knew, he was in the Med Bay being tenderly embraced by the Asari version of She-Hulk. "Well...looks like you've recovered nicely." He chuckled nervously, earning a flirtatious wink from said Asari.

"A little too nicely, perhaps." Dr. Chakwas remarked dryly as she began to run some tests on Shiala, scrawling notes with every observation of her new physique. "Allow me to catch you both up to speed. Going by the post-mission reports, as well as my own observations, it seems that a combination of Shiala's long-term exposure to the Thorian spores, as well as you two melding, caused Shiala's biotics to suck up the dead Thorian biomass in your surroundings at the time. For the past three days, Shiala's body has been draining some kind of energy I've never seen before from your implant, and using that energy to metabolize her extra biomass into, well, what you see before you." She gestured to the Normandy's newest crew member. "Her biotics themselves were also radically altered in the process, losing their ability to be projected from her person at range, but retaining, and even strengthening her ability to generate and maintain a personal barrier around herself with little effort."

"My...implant?" Ben questioned the single most unimportant part of that explanation.

"The one implanted in your spine." Chakwas explained casually. "Third vertebrae? Ringing any bells?"

It took Ben a moment before he realized what Chakwas was talking about. When he did, his left eye immediately twitched.

"Okay, that's his tell." Liara noticed immediately. "What exactly is so special or worrisome about your implant that it prompted that response?"

"It's...complicated." Ben scratched behind his head nervously before letting out a sigh. "It's also something I think is more than time to share with the whole crew."

"Commander, we are approaching the site of the fifth Geth base, and moving in for landing." Joker's voice came over the PA system at the worst of times. "Ben, if you're awake, your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. Also, I fart in your general direction. That is all."

"...Has he been doing that every time he used the PA system while I was asleep?" Ben asked neutrally.

"It's what I get for adding worksafe filters to all the Normandy's systems." Quasar rolled his eyes. "I block his porn, he binge watches comedians from two centuries ago and makes life hell for all of us. Also, glad you're finally awake Ben."

"Thanks Quasar." Ben nodded as he rolled his shoulders to work out the kinks. "Looks like we'll have to put the explaining on hold on until after the mission."

"You'd better not be trying to dodge the question." Tali said sternly even as they made their way to prep for the mission, Shiala staying behind with Chakwas to go through some exams and tests the doctor hadn't been able to perform while she'd been latched onto Ben. "My father would always do something similar whenever I wanted to just spend a day together with him."

"It's not, I promise." Ben assured her as they joined up with the rest of the squad, Ben getting several claps on the back welcoming him back to the team. "Speaking of explanations, what exactly did I miss while I was out the last three days?"

 **...**

 **Normandy - Post-Assignment**

The recap of the last few days had been nothing all that special, and with one exception, the assignment they were on was so basic that he'd been caught up mid-firefight with the Geth. Despite Ben being unconscious and trapped in Shiala's embrace, the crew hadn't remained idle. If anything, their most combat capable member being unavailable for the last few days had pushed the rest of the team to work longer and harder to compensate. Even the normally aloof and somewhat cynical Wrex had been going the extra mile.

To start with, the crew followed up on the leads they'd collected on Feros. Apparently, the samples ExoGeni had provided to Cerberus weren't Thorian spores as they had originally assumed, or at least, weren't part of the only recorded shipment they'd found - they had to have gotten the Thorian Thrall samples they found earlier from somewhere - but Dragon's Teeth. As Ben had immediately guessed upon being told this, every member of the Cerberus team assigned to study them was already a Husk by the time the squad had arrived to investigate.

Next, while on their way to investigate the offsite ExoGeni facility, they'd come across a derelict freighter called the MSV Cornucopia. Like the Cerberus facility they'd found earlier that same day, it was full of Husks and Dragon's Teeth. The two incidents didn't seem to be directly related, as the ship's logs mentioned coming across the Dragon's Teeth purely by chance, having mistaken them as Geth artifacts. Assuming Cerberus hadn't deliberately planted the Dragon's Teeth - and knowing Cerberus, none of the crew could write off that possibility - it had just been bad luck that they'd found them.

The visit to the ExoGeni facility the next day had gone much smoother, as the scientists working there had been told of the situation by their bosses, and instructed to do whatever Shepard demanded of them. As this team of scientists knew the Thorian research better than anyone, Shepard had decided to shove down her sense of morality for the moment, and have them investigate the method of using processed Thorian spores to counteract the Reaper's Indoctrination attacks. As they already had a thorough understanding of the spores, an idea of what they were expected to make, and the reluctant cooperation of those directly exposed to said spores, the results were already looking promising, with a workable prototype scheduled to be ready for testing within the next week or so.

Finally, after the bare minimum amount of rest and caloric intake, they investigated and destroyed all four Geth outposts they'd learned about while on Feros. None of them had enough Geth platforms to launch a full-scale invasion of anything larger than a year old or younger colony, even when gathered all together, so the crew had decided to use the data they gathered from the bases to triangulate a fifth, much larger and more fortified base. Fortunately for all involved, Ben had woken up shortly before they arrived at this final base, so instead of this base being more difficult to handle than any of the others, it had actually turned out to be slightly easier. Plus, with Quasar back on the squad along with him, a sizable cache of Geth data was recovered as well, much to Tali's delight, if the ecstatic hollering and happy, bouncing dance she began as soon as they got back to the Normandy was any indication.

In addition to all of this, the crew had also staked several new resource claims for Humanity, and retrieved a few more Asari Writings, Turian Flags, Salarian IDs & Prothean Data Disks. Not all that much in the grand scheme of things, but enough to attract a bit more interest from a few people that might be able to help the inevitable war efforts.

"...Okay, what am I missing here?" Joker asked as he came by the docking bay to investigate the noise Tali was making. "Other than a few loose credits to slip into her suit, that is." He grinned as he stared at the tantalizing sway of her pronounced hips.

"I'd smack you for leering at my girlfriend if I didn't think I'd accidentally kill you in the process." Ben quipped defensively, even as he appreciated the show as well.

"I think that's the first time in my life I've ever been thankful for having brittle bones." Joker returned fire with ease. "Seriously though, why is Tali doing her happy dance?"

"I'm not sure myself." Ben shrugged nonchalantly, as if the round of barbing he'd just had with Joker never occurred. "All I did was give her the data cache Quasar snatched from the Geth on our last mission, and before I knew it she was jumping for joy. What was in that data anyway, Quasar?"

"What was in that data?!" Tali parroted in unbridled joy as she grabbed Ben and dragged him into her dance. "Only the last piece of the puzzle to achieve everything my entire species has dreamed of for the last 300 years! The key to the return of our homeworld! Indisputable proof that not only is there a division in the Geth, but the Geth that stayed behind in our old territories outnumber the Geth that joined the Reapers 3 to 1, and want to reconcile with us! And I owe it all to you~!" She cheered in a sing-song voice as she jumped into his arms bridal style. "Oohhh, if you asked me to marry you right now I totally would." She sighed lovingly as she nestled her head in the crook of Ben's neck, which had gone stiff along with the rest of his body at the mention of the 'M' word. "...Did I just say that out loud." She muttered fearfully when she realized what she'd said.

"...It's...a little early in our relationship to be taking about marriage, don't you think?" Ben chuckled awkwardly as he noticed everyone present either snickering, giving him a sarcastic thumbs-up, or both.

"...Most Quarians actually only spend a few months courting each other before marriage is on the table, half a year if they're taking things slow." Tali admitted nervously. "Efficiency and all that."

"Let's just slow up a bit and give a little more forethought before jumping to conclusions." Jane interjected, cutting through the tension with her unwavering authority. "In more ways than one." She gave both Ben and Tali a pointed look. "For starters, are you sure this evidence you've salvaged is indisputable?"

"Mathematically speaking, yes." Tali confirmed resolutely. "The Admiralty Board of the Migrant Fleet will likely be divided regardless of the facts however, but we don't need to get all of them on our side, just a majority vote. Admiral Zaal'Koris is already in favor of reconciliation, and while two of the other Admirals are hardliners for exterminating or controlling the Geth, Shala'Raan only acts based on hard facts, and I know I can get through to...my father." She whispered nervously at the end.

"Your father is an Admiral?!" Ben parroted in surprise, everyone else in the room similarly shocked by this new information. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"

"...I've said it before, but my relationship with my father isn't exactly the best." Tali admitted sadly, before steeling herself. "That's all going to change now though. Paradox was right, I need to make my father listen. Not just so I can finally have a healthy relationship with him for the first time since I can remember, but for the future of my entire species. I need to get my people to do the smart thing for once in our miserable, space-locked exile. I know that if I can just get the Admirals to agree to negotiate with the peaceful faction of Geth on neutral grounds for a few minutes, we can finally have a homeworld for the first time in three hundred years!"

"I like it when you get passionate about something like this." Jane grinned as she gave Tali a proud clap on the shoulder. "Though it would sound more dramatic if you weren't being held bridal style in Ben's arms." She snarked humorously.

"...Can you blame me?" Tali shrugged excitedly. "For crying out loud, just look at him. He's so buff!" She whispered as she happily wiggled her feet.

"Maybe so." Shiala remarked as she popped up behind Ben and lifted him the same way he was lifting Tali, much to everybody's surprise, as none of them had seen her coming. "But I'm pretty sure I've got him beat in that area." She smirked down at them playfully.

"Shiala, I see you've finished the tests Chakwas had for you." Shepard greeted their newest crew member, whose massive stature was quite a surprise to those who hadn't seen her awake yet.

"I'm all ready for field assignment, Commander." Shiala nodded before putting Ben down, who then put Tali down. "Just point and say the word, and I'll devastate any enemies."

"...Points for enthusiasm." Ashley was the first of the uninformed crew to regain her senses. "But maybe we should get you some more...suitable armor before taking you on missions with us."

"This is more suitable." Shiala smiled as she bent over and tugged on the v-neck of her top. "See, I had the tears in my old suit patched up to straighten out any frayed edges."

"I...don't think that's what she had in mind." Kaidan remarked nervously as he tried to look anywhere but in Shiala's direction.

"Not that any of us are complaining." Joker grinned as he gladly took in an eyeful of the massive, green Asari cleavage on display, before bending to switch his gaze to her equally impressive rear and thighs.

"Don't worry, my biotics may be no good for long-range anymore, but my personal barrier is stronger than most armors now." Shiala assured everyone.

"Now she's just messing with you lot." Wrex smirked approvingly.

"I must say, this is quite a change in your behavior." Liara noted curiously. "Perhaps your altered physical state has cause a hormonal shift in your brain."

"I'd say it's half that, and half what I saw when I melded with Ben." Shiala shrugged her broad shoulders before turning her gaze to the cloned hero. "By the Goddess, the things I saw while melded with you would mold any mind into something far more than what it ever was. The forms your genetic source could take, the wonders and horrors the other versions of you have seen across the omniverse, your vast experience with dozens of lovers." She blushed as a soft moan left her lips. "Is it any wonder I fell head over heels for you at first meld?" She grabbed Ben by the shoulders and lifted him up to smooch him with unbridled passion.

"...Fuck. You!" Joker glared at Ben in burning/mocking envy.

"Maybe later, when we have some alone time." Shiala purred as she parted lips with Ben and set him down, both of them still seeing stars from the brief make-out session.

"Wait a moment!" Liara interjected as she tried not to protest a new rival for Ben's affections. "Do you mean to say that you observed other versions of Ben while you were melded with him?"

"You didn't?" Shiala blinked in surprise, before shrugging it off. "Well, I suppose it's no big deal one way or the other. It's not as though any of them are in any position to help us...Though the one seducing fairies with abnormally thin waists and fighting evil witches, warlocks, and a large bipedal turtle with a flaming head does have access to a limited degree of inter-dimensional travel." She hummed thoughtfully, eliciting several odd glances at both her and Ben from the bizarre non-sequitur description.

"Everything else aside!" Ben raised his voice to mask his embarrassment, making a mental note that Adwaita was most likely not going to cause this version of himself any trouble. "There's something I want all of you to see." He walked off, gesturing for the rest to follow. Within a few minutes, they arrived at Shepard's office.

"Okay, what have you been hiding in my office without my knowledge, Ben?" Jane stared at him sternly.

"Remember what Chakwas said about the implant in my neck having an energy signature she's never seen before?" Ben asked uncomfortably as he reached under Shepard's bed and pulled out something wrapped in a tarp. "Well...this is it." He braced himself as he unfolded it on the bed, revealing a gnarly looking black sword with countless white dots inside of it, and a faint white glow around it that looked like an outline no matter what angle it was observed from.

"...It's a sword." Joker noted neutrally, clearly unimpressed.

"Clearly it's not an ordinary sword." Shepard said observantly. "Otherwise why go through the trouble of hiding it? More specifically, why hide it under my bed?"

"It was the most secure place on the Normandy I could think of." Ben shrugged nervously, getting a reluctant nod from Shepard before she motioned for him to continue his explanation. "Obviously, it's one of the weapons I can make with my shapeshifting."

"Ten DNA samples." Shepard nodded stoically, neither upset or accepting...yet. "I've been wondering which one you've been hiding. So what makes this one so special?"

"This is the big gun Paradox mentioned when he contacted us." Ben answered, getting a tense glare from Ashley, while everyone else didn't change their expressions, choosing to simply wait and trust Ben for the moment. "It's from a transformation I call 'Alien X'."

"Real original name there." Garrus noted sarcastically.

"This...isn't possible." Tali shook her head in denial as she looked at a readout on her Omni-tool. "That sword...cannot possibly be real."

Wrex lifted the sword by the handle, giving it a casual turn to examine it. "Looks pretty real to me." The old Krogan shrugged before casually plopping the sword back onto the bed, not noticing Tali let out a sigh of relief.

"Please don't ever do that again." Tali requested shakily as she held her hand to her forehead. "You have no idea how many laws of physics that thing breaks just by existing. I don't want to test its limits in even the most controlled environment imaginable, let alone in the hands of a clumsy old Krogan."

"...What exactly are we dealing with here, Tali?" Shepard asked worriedly as she looked at the deceptively innocent looking blade.

"Statistically and physically? Nothing." Tali whispered with dread in her voice as she raised a shaky hand. "To be specific...that kind of nothing." She said as she pointed at - or more specifically, out - the window, into the empty vacuum of space.

Shepard felt a deep weight drop in the pit of her stomach as she glanced from the window, to the sword, to Ben, who didn't seem to fully grasp what Tali had just said. "Let me see if I've got this straight." She held up a hand as she felt a migraine coming on. "You're telling me that this sword, which is currently resting on my bed...is made out of something that doesn't physically exist?!" Her voice hiked up several octaves at the end of her query.

"...Is that bad?" Ben asked uncertainly.

"Don't be mad at him." Shiala interjected before Shepard or anybody else could respond. "Back in his home universe he once traveled eons into the past to both ensure and witness the creation of his entire universe by a race of godlike energy beings. His sense of disbelief is far removed from our own."

"...I...have no response to that." Jane sighed as she massaged her temples. "Just...tell me what we're dealing with here, Ben. What can this 'Alien X' do, exactly?"

"In practice? Absolutely nothing." Ben answered sighed as he picked up and examined the sword. "Alien X already has two personalities built in; Serena and Bellicus. In order for Alien X to do literally anything, they need to come to a consensus. When I'm part of them, it's a majority rules situation. The main problem with this is that they can't agree on ANYTHING, at all. Plus, they're more focused on settling their 80 million and 3 old debates than dealing with any problems facing 'Lesser Beings' like us. The most use I've ever gotten out of them is by harnessing their DNA to create an indestructible sword that can cut through anything." To demonstrate his point, he held the sword up, and gently swung it down, the blade seeming to vanish into thin air as a tearing noise was heard. "Observe." He said as he grabbed the air, pulled it open, and stepped into it, vanishing before everybody's stunned and amazed gazes.

"I...have absolutely no response to this." Kaidan blinked in shock as he tried to grab whatever physically impossible tear Ben had made in the air, only to be met with no more resistance than one would expect from air, the tear obviously having closed after Ben went through it. Suddenly, another tearing noise came from behind him as the black blade came out of nowhere.

"See what I mean?" Ben said as he stepped out of the tear, which closed behind him, just as the last one had. "Serena and Bellicus may have the power to warp reality itself to their whims, but even if I could access their full power, their entire species is more focused on having endless debates than actually doing anything with their infinite power." He shrugged as he rewrapped the sword, leaving everyone else gaping in shock and awe at the sheer raw power possessed by an entire species. "The only thing they agree on is that they both hate Paradox, and clearly they're not motivated enough to do anything about him, otherwise they would have by now. They aren't too fond of me either, but that's neither here nor there." Feeling odd about the palpable silence in the room after he put the sword back under Shepard's bed, he turned to see everyone frozen like gaping, wide-mouthed bass. "...I just broke your minds, didn't I?"

"A little bit, yeah." Wrex was the first to come to his senses. "You've been dropping mental bombshells on us one after another ever since you got here, but this one beats all."

"So let me see if I've got this straight." Joker held up his hands in confusion and frustration. "You're telling me you have the power to turn into God?!"

"I wouldn't describe it exactly like that, but I guess it's close enough." Ben shrugged tiredly. "And I can't completely transform into Alien X anymore, just an arm and this sword. I made the sword and hid it here just after our first encounter on Eden Prime was over, while Shepard was unconscious. I figured if I was gonna use my Alien X DNA at some really important moment, I wanna know the full limits of it."

"And exactly what kind of limits does it have?" Shepard inquired sternly. "Besides what you've already said and shown us."

"Allow me to handle the explanation from here on." Quasar spoke up. "Based on the observations I conducted from scans and prior data Ben allowed me to be privy to, it seems that the sword is able to exist indefinitely after separating from Ben, and contains a massive amount of a previously unknown energy. In theory, 1/10th of the power this sword contains could vaporize an entire, heavily shielded dreadnought if it were made to detonate, or power every single electronic device and ship on the Citadel, including the Citadel itself for no less than three years." He paused to let the implications of such a massive power supply sink in. "Fortunately, the physical form of the sword, and the power it contains is stable enough to withstand the full force of several atomic bombs without damage. The power can be siphoned by some traditional energy harvesting methods, but not in any way that would exceed the traditional limits of the energy harvesters used. Based on the tests Ben and I have conducted by mixing the DNA itself with that of his other transformations, only by combining the Alien X DNA with the Bloxx DNA can the energy be directly channeled as a weapon."

"And how exactly does it channel the energy into a weapon?" Garrus inquired with dreadful urgency.

"Uncertain. We have never fired the weapon, but the shape it takes has possible implications." Quasar answered as Ben shifted his DNA to demonstrate, putting everyone on guard as a circular black pack with what looked like a small galaxy slowly spinning inside it appeared on his back, a string of glowing white spheres connecting it to his right arm like some sort of constellation, and the right arm itself shifting into a similar shape to the sword, but with a small opening on the tip that was softly glowing white. "It is most likely a concentrated beam of energy, though how fast the beam travels, whether the beam is continuous or a single shot, and whether the beam only pierces, detonates upon impact, or something else entirely, is all unknown. As such, I would advise against using it unless all other options have been exhausted. Other options are to wait until we arrive at Virmire, where Paradox originally suggested its use be saved for, as the circumstances there might have some clues as to its effects. Or until such a time as Paradox, the one person most like to know the answers to these questions, is present to respond to them."

"Please put that thing away before it gives me a heart attack." Ashley shuddered with trepidation, letting out a sigh of relief when Ben did as requested. "...I'm not the only one worried about a potential WMD with a mind of its own being on the Normandy, am I?"

"Believe me, I'm plenty worried about my own power myself." Ben sighed tiredly. "You can all see why I was so hesitant to tell you all about this, right?"

"Absolutely." Liara nodded before taking a seat, feeling very lightheaded after what she'd just heard. Massaging her temples, a sudden thought occurred to her. "I take it that the implant in your spine is meant to help you control such vast power?"

"More or less." Ben shrugged nonchalantly. "It keeps the power from frying my entire body, and diverts a small portion of it to my shields, which might explain why it's taking so long to recharge, now that I think about it."

"Hang on a second." Said Wrex as Ben's words registered. "You said you made that sword a few months ago, and the DNA for it is still recharging?!"

"Estimated full charge time for Alien X DNA is one year." Quasar answered factually. "Genetic charge only depleted through allowing sword to remain manifested after DNA is deactivated and, in theory, through firing of energy weapon."

"At least he won't be dropping hundreds of atomic bombs every other day." Garrus sighed in relief. "Not that small mercies like that make this situation any less stressful."

"Speaking of mercies and death, it's about time I settled an old score." Shepard grinned as she recalled a message she'd received from Admiral Hackett on the way back to the ship from the last mission. "Remember how angry I got when I found out that someone was deliberately luring Thresher Maws and Alliance marines into deadly confrontations?"

"Hard to forget a show like that." Wrex grinned with a light chuckle. "What about it?"

"Apparently, with all the intel and resources we've been providing the Alliance recently, they've tracked down the sons of bitches directly responsible." Shepard chuckled darkly as she cracked her knuckles in anticipation. "And they aren't the only ones. Apparently, someone or some group has been hunting them down like the animals they are, and it sounds like they aren't far from corning the last one in the Kepler Verge."

"The Kepler Verge, you say?" Garrus hummed happily. "Mind if we take a little detour while we're in the area? The shipping reports we forced out of those ExoGeni people point to a few Thorian Creepers having been shipped into that area."

"You sound a little too eager to be hunting down pod people." Tali noted suspiciously. "If it were Shiala I'd understand it, but what about those shipments is so important to you that it can't be left to someone else."

"It's not the shipments, it's the scientist receiving them." Garrus clarified darkly. "Nothing concrete, but cross-referencing evidence, ship transponder codes, and a few reports suggest that the researcher studying and experimenting on them there is Dr. Saleon."

"Dr. Saleon?" Ben parroted Garrus in support. "As in the same Dr. Saleon who used his employees as living test tubes to clone organs to sell on the black market? The same Dr. Saleon who managed to evade capture from C-Sec - you in particular - a few years back?"

"Given his penchant for illegal cloning, you never know." Garrus quipped grimly. "He changed his name, calls himself Dr. R. Heart now - his idea of a sick joke - but I know it's him. I'll finally be able to finish what I wasn't able to back then."

"It's my ship, so my revenge comes first." Jane insisted playfully. "You can hunt and kill your mad scientist after I do the same to mine."

"Ah, the sweet scent of revenge." Wrex chuckled a deep, throaty laugh. "Glad to see it's more than just Krogans who can hold an unhealthy grudge."

"Don't suppose you need any help settling an old score too?" Ashley asked the old Krogan sarcastically.

"A Krogan that lives as long as I have has already checked off most of their grudges." Wrex boasted proudly, before turning thoughtful. "I suppose I could check the old ledger though, see if there's anything I could use a couple of extra guns handling."

"You had to ask." Joker shook his head at Ashley, who just roller her eyes. "Also, do you seriously have a ledger of grudges?" He turned to Wrex in mild disbelief.

"You mean you don't?" Wrex grinned, obviously never going to tire of that line.

"Enough idle chit-chat." Shepard clapped twice to get all focus on her. "We have half an hour until we reach Ontarom, where the last son of a bitch responsible for the Thresher Maw traps is supposedly hiding. I want everyone geared-up and ready to kill some bastards!"

"Very inspirational, Commander Shepard." Shiala slowly applauded, with a soft chuckle added for good measure. "Truly, this is a crew of only the most elite."

"You bet your unnaturally well-toned thighs it is." Ben clapped her on the back. "...That would have worked better if I had slapped your legs, but I'm not sure if our relationship is that far along yet."

"It is as far as you want it to be." Shiala winked playfully at Ben before sashaying off. "Keep in mind, I may no longer be a maiden, but I am still an Asari."

"...I doubt any of us will be forgetting that anytime soon." Tali whispered to her boyfriend teasingly.

 **...**

 **Newton System - Ontarom**

"Looks like we've got hostiles ahead." Shepard stroked her gun eagerly as Ben drove the Mako around the back of a fortified science facility, built to withstand the electrical storms that frequently plagued this planet. "Ready to show us what you can do, Shiala?" She craned her head to address the amazonian Asari directly.

"As you humans say, this one is all me." Shiala boasted as she popped open the door and hopped out, her biotics flaring up into a faint glow around her as she cracked her knuckles. "Give me about thirty...no, twenty seconds to warm up before following in after me."

"Surely, she must be joking." Liara disputed her fellow Asari's claim in disbelief...just before she bounded over the facility in a single jump, crashing down onto what sounded like her first kill of the mission on the other side. "...Apparently she wasn't." She muttered in quiet resignation as she and the rest of the crew followed the sounds of gunfire and breaking bones around to the entrance of the structure.

"...Sometimes I don't know why I even bother coming on missions with the rest of you anymore." Kaidan shook his head in disbelief at the sight of Shiala holding up a hostile by the head in each of her large hands, crushing their skulls with ease in her biotic grip as bullets bounced harmlessly off her personal barrier, then throwing their now dead bodies at the assailants stilling shooting at her.

"I've got this one." Ashley sighed in resignation as she fired a few shots at the prone forms of the hostiles before they could push their fallen comrades off of themselves. "Maybe we should consider transferring to a different post."

"Not until Ben and I save both of your lives from whatever it is Paradox says would kill one of you in the old timelines." Shepard ordered the pair. "After that, you can go AWOL for all I care, just so long as I can save you from a known threat."

"That's an oddly bizarre yet touching order." Garrus noted as he scoped and shot an approaching hostile. "But how will we know when that threat has come and gone?"

"I don't know." Shepard shrugged as she surveyed the area for any other hostiles, holstering her weapon in satisfaction when she found none. "I'm just assuming we'll know it before we run into it, and hopefully come up with something on the fly. It's why I'm keeping every available resource we can find in storage on the Normandy, just in case."

" **Every** available resource?" Tali asked as she mentally went over every mission the crew had gone on since she joined. "Does that include the Thorian Spores and the nuclear warhead?!" She inquired nervously, the thought of being in confined proximity with a pair of such massive hazmat resources very worrying to her, as well as the rest of the crew.

"Of course not." Shepard assured the team as they entered the structure. "You heard the message Paradox left behind, the Thorian Spores will be most useful after we have ExoGeni process them into a countermeasure for the Reaper's Indoctrination. That's why I left them all with their surviving science teams."

"And the bomb?" Wrex pressed the Commander further, getting nothing but silence in response. "...That's what I was afraid of." He sighed, leaving everyone with a powerful feeling of dread, made even more tense due to all the bodies littering the facility, the killer of the scientists no doubt already here.

"To be fair, if the proper safety protocols are adhered to, anything powerful enough to set the bomb off by accident would most likely destroy the entire Normandy anyway." Ben assured the team as they went into another room, shocking the rest of the team so much that it fell to him to deal with the sudden onslaught of hostiles, which he did by mixing Diamondhead with Wildvine DNA, creating a pair of diamond-tipped vine whips emerging from cracks in his crystalline arms. "Why am I the only one doing any work right now?!" He shouted over the gunfire as he used one whip to decapitate a guard, while using the other to impale a large metal crate and swing it in front of them for cover.

"Sorry about that!" Garrus apologized for the team as he and Ashley got into sniping position. "It's just that we're not used to you being the smart one!"

"That doesn't make me feel better!" He protested as his whips scraped a few mercs, damaging their shields and leaving them staggering, leaving them easy prey for a follow up of shotgun fire from Wrex and Tali.

"He's got a point though!" Tali acknowledged thoughtfully as she shot an approaching hostile, finishing it up with a quick double-tap. "You may be good at improvising and finding ways to solve problems, but the more technical stuff does tend to escape you."

"...That actually does make me feel better." Ben shrugged as the last body in the room hit the floor, and his DNA went back to normal. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure where that came from either."

"Allow me-" Shiala grunted as she suplexed a Krogan trying to ambush them so hard that his skullplate - and the skull beneath it - shattered and caved in. "To offer an explanation for that." She panted as she dusted the blood and brain matter off her hands. "If I were to hazard a guess, I would think that my having been melded with Ben for so long caused both of us to take away something beneficial from the experience."

"You are suggesting that while you gained an increase in strength, Ben gained a portion of your knowledge." Liara surmised curiously. "An interesting yet sound theory. The bonding of nervous systems has always allowed for memories and knowledge to be shared, so it's not unthinkable that your unique and prolonged bonding would cause a side effect such as this."

"Now that you mention it, I do seem to have a better understanding of all the technical stuff I saw in the Normandy when I woke up." Ben nodded as they proceeded to the next door. "I'm still no expert, but I at least know what most of the gadgets and tech on the Normandy does now."

"...Are we just gonna ignore the fact that Shiala just made a Krogan's head explode by suplexing them?" Ashley whispered to Kaidan.

"You know Ash, I think that's exactly what we're gonna do." Kaidan nodded much more stoically than he felt. "...Are you starting to feel like we're the only normal ones on this crew?"

"I am so far past starting that feeling." Ashley sighed as the door opened, a scientist being held at gunpoint by an armored figure on the other side. "Case and point, just watch Shepard and Ben somehow turn this standoff we just happened to come across moments before the trigger was pulled, into a huge win for our preparations against Saren and the Reapers."

"Stay back!" The gunman demanded hotly. "I've got no grief with you! All I want is this bastard!"

"Please, he's a madman!" The scientist lied desperately. "Mr. Toombs, you're insane! You need help!"

"Shut-up!" The now named Mr. Toombs demanded as he jabbed the business end of his gun in the scientist's face. "You don't get to lie! You don't-!" He paused as he got a good look at the Commander. "Shepard?!" He gasped in stunned disbelief. "My god! Shepard, is that you?!"

"...Toombs!?" Shepard whispered, before letting out a hiss as her temporally fused memories slid into place, and burst into the forefront of her mind. "...But, you were on Akuze!" She recalled in shock as her traumatic memories settled back into place. "I saw the Thresher Maw pull you under!"

"They took me Shepard! The scientists!" Toombs explained to his old Commander.

"You can't prove any of this!" The scientist protested. "This man is delusional!"

"Actually Dr. Wayne," Shepard began coldly, scaring the scientist with her knowledge of his identity. "We can prove this, all of it!"

"What do you mean, Shepard?" Toombs asked in hopeful confusion. "How do you know this scumbag's name? What do you know about all of this?!"

"You're not the only one who survive Akuze that's been hunting down Cerberus, Toombs." Shepard replied, causing Dr. Wayne's already frightened expression to sink like a lead balloon. "I've come across a few terminals and bases containing intel on Cerberus, and it's a lot bigger than either of us fully knows, Toombs. They have the connections and resources to assassinate Rear Admiral Kahoku, while leaving only enough of a trail to link it to one or two cells, but never the bigger organization."

"No...not Kahoku." Toombs whispered sorrowfully, apparently familiar with the man, though whether by reputation, possibly having served under him in the past, actually interaction or otherwise was unknown. "Wait...you took down some of their bases? So that's why I was able to escape so easily, we must have just missed each other!" He realized gleefully as he jabbed his gun at Dr. Wayne's head again. "Funny how fate works, isn't it Shepard? You helped me without knowing, and I did the same for you."

"Fate is funny, but I'm funnier." Shepard shook her head as she placed a gentle hand on Toombs's arm, realizing too late how lame that line sounded, as the snickering from her team in the background could attest to. "Like I said Toombs, Cerberus is bigger than either of us knows, and while I can't get into too many details now, something else is coming. Something so big that we can't afford to let anything else distract us."

"...What are you getting at, Shepard?" Toombs asked uncertainly.

"I'm saying, that as much as we both want this man dead, we have to arrest him and put him on trial instead." Shepard explained sternly. "Think about it, this man is so terrified right now that he'll rat out EVERYTHING he knows about Cerberus if it keeps him alive." She gestured to the trembling scientist, who began nodding like his life depended on it - which, to be fair, it literally did. "Keeping him alive hurts **them** more." She strongly emphasized the bigger picture.

"...I hadn't thought about it like that." Toombs murmured thoughtfully. "...You're right, we need to focus on the bigger picture." He said as he lowered his weapon. "Killing this bastard may make me feel better, but letting him live will save a lot more lives in the long run, and I'm still a soldier. I just hope that now the voices will stop."

"You honor them more by saving lives than by taking them." Jane told him emphatically as she pat him warmly on the shoulder. "Obviously, there's always gonna be some overlap, but let's just focus on making things better for now." She stepped back and activated her comms. "Joker, call the Fifth Fleet for a transport. One with a cold jail cell and a warm hospital bed."

"May they never make them any other way, Commander." Joker replied playfully.

 **...**

 **Herschel System - MSV Fedele**

Shepard, Ben and Garrus entered Dr. Saleon's ship on their own, confident that they wouldn't need any backup against the mad doctor. The Fedele wasn't any different than any other ship of its class, so there wasn't much room to maneuver anyway. Plus, everyone else in the ground team was busy with other matters. Liara was studying the Prothean Data Disks, and cataloging any other Turian, Asari, and Salarian relics and corpses they'd picked up in their extensive travels. Tali was working with the rest of the Normandy's engineers to strip all salvage for anything valuable, incorporate it into the ship and armory wherever they could, and cataloging the rest for either sale or the emergency parts bin. Shiala got a splitting headache as soon as they approached Dr. Saleon's ship - likely a side effect of whatever experiments the mad doctor was performing on the Thorian spore samples - so she stayed in the infirmary to sleep it off. Wrex, as it turned out, wasn't just joking about his revenge ledger, and was going through it for anything he felt he might need help with. Ashley was coordinating with the Systems Alliance about getting all the resource deposits the crew had come across strip mined as quickly as possible. And Kaidan was taking a shuttle on a sweep of the system for any items of interest the Normandy's scanners had picked up.

"This shouldn't be too much trouble, but stay on guard anyway." Shepard instructed the squad as she cradled an assault rifle cautiously. "Dr. Saleon might let loose a few Creepers, or have some mercs on his payroll."

"Two words Jane, Mad Scientists." Ben cautioned her with a shudder as they entered a large storage room with crates stacked up to the ceiling. "I have plenty of experience with them back in my universe, and they can be as crazy dangerous as they are just plain crazy."

"Incoming!" Garrus warned as a Creeper charged at them from around the corner, only to be met with a hail of bullets for the attempt. "Looks like Dr. Saleon is doing more than cloning organs." He scowled as more charged in, quickly meeting the same fate as their fellow freak.

"These things aren't like the Creepers from Feros, if they're even Creepers at all." Shepard noted as two more of the Test Subjects died. "They bleed blue, Creepers bleed green."

"Guess Dr. Saleon isn't satisfied with the basic design." Ben added as he examined a thrashing, vine ensnared Test Subject. "My Wildvine DNA doesn't give me a splitting headache, and the Anti-Thorian grenades don't kill them. Whether these are modified Creepers or something else entirely though, one thing is definitely certain. We've got grade-A mad science on our hands."

"Dr. Saleon must be through here." Garrus anxiously urged them to the back of the room. "Let's give that gutless Salarian what he's got coming." Nodding in agreement, the squad of three made their way through the door, then started their search by checking the left room. _'Jackpot!'_ He thought gleefully at the sight of Dr. Saleon being behind the first door they checked.

"Thank you! Thank you for saving me from those things!" Dr. Saleon smiled warmly at them, as if he hadn't been the one to make those monsters in the first place.

"Commander, that's him. That's Dr. Saleon." Garrus nodded in Shepard's direction.

"What?!" Dr. Saleon panicked at the realization that the team knew who he was, before desperately - and pathetically - trying to lie to save his life. "My name is Heard, Dr. Heart! Please, get me out of here!"

"You sure it's him, Garrus?" Ben grinned eagerly as he braced himself to fire his Wildvine gun.

"Positive." Garrus nodded in confirmation. "There's no escape this time, Doctor. I'd harvest your organs first, but we don't have the time."

"You're crazy. He's crazy!" Dr. Saleon hypocritically begged for his life as he turned toward Shepard, the only he felt he had even the tiniest chance of fooling at this point. "Please, don't let him do this to me!"

"Don't worry, Garrus won't do anything to you." Jane smirked sadistically, though Dr. Saleon clearly hadn't noticed her expression or sarcastic tone, as his relieved face could testify. "Ben?" She tilted her head toward her lover, who fired a seed pod at the mad doctor, encasing him in vines from head to toe, and sending him tumbling head over heels onto the floor. "Joker, put in another call to the Fifth Fleet. Tell them Dr. Wayne will be getting a new cellmate, and that we need a science team to figure out what the hell went on here."

"Maybe bring in a few ExoGeni scientists too." Ben added his two credits. "They know Thorian junk better than anyone."

"Will do on both accounts." Joker's voice sounded over the comms. "Speaking of ExoGeni, they've managed to figure out that formula our buddy the Professor left. The you-know-what injections are tested and ready for deployment wherever and whenever you are, Commander. Plus, they have viable formulas for both dextro- and levo-amino acids."

"Excellent!" Shepard grinned at the news of a completed anti-Indoctrination injection. "Have them send 100 doses of each type directly to Captain Anderson on the Citadel. We'll swing by to get the crew immunized, and let him figure out who should get the rest." She was about to sign out when she remembered something else Paradox had mentioned. "Oh, and while we're at the Citadel, remind me to get all the systems that connect to the elevators reinforced."

"Weird thing to request, but alright. Over and out." Joker sounded off in confusion.

 **...**

 **Omake 1: Normandy - Mess Hall**

"I can't wait to get back to the Citadel." Tali sighed contentedly as she sat down to eat and stretched out the kinks in her back from all the hands-on mechanical work she'd been doing. "It'll give me a chance to submit my list of improvements that need to be made to this hunk of junk before it goes into mass-production." She remarked as she rapped her knuckles derisively on the wall.

"This is a top of the line, cutting-edge technology Alliance ship, fresh off the assembly line." Ashley reminded her Quarian co-worker defensively. "I'd hardly call it a hunk of junk."

"Yeah, and didn't you have nothing but praise for it when you first got here?" Ben reminded her wistfully. "I still remember how cute you were back then, bouncing on the tips of your toes, obsessing over this part or that system."

"That was before I had a better understanding of the ship." Tali huffed confidently. "Now that I've familiarized myself with its designs inside and out - and don't worry, I won't go telling everyone about it." She assured Ashley, preemptively cutting off any complaints from the slightly-too-patriotic soldier. "Anyway, it's got a a few big problems, and a lot of little problems here and there that I think I've just about got covered." She noted as she fiddled with her Omni-tool, making a few last minute adjustments and additions to her notes. "Most of it is simple enough: a different model of part or conduit to improve energy efficiency, an additional sub-routine in a few of the systems to streamline the data management and strengthen the shields. You know, the rudimentary stuff that always gets overlooked by the big-shot scientists who think they know better than a Quarian." Tali boasted pridefully. "And I do not bounce!" She added fiercely as she wagged her finger sternly at Ben, who merely held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Actually you do." Wrex cut in bluntly. "I've seen you do it actually, out of the corner of my eye. One of the benefits of evolving as prey is a wide range of vision." He grinned as he tapped his face, just behind his eye. "I can see why Ben stares so much when he thinks you're not looking, but we both know you are. You just like putting on a show for him." He called her out, causing Tali to shake her head in embarrassment.

"...You knew I was looking?" Ben nervously asked his girlfriend, who nervously gave a so-so motion. "Wait...Krogan evolved as prey animals?!" He blinked in shock, wondering and slightly terrified by the idea that a species as physically robust as Krogan was low on the food chain.

"Don't be too surprised." Garrus chided the extra-dimensional hero mockingly. "From what I've heard, on Tuchanka, everything is both predator and prey, even some of the plants."

"Most of the plants, actually." Wrex casually corrected the sharpshooting Turian. "We've got this one lumpy thing that grows in the ground, kinda like that Earth plant you humans call potatoes, only ours releases a cloud of painful, paralyzing spores if you try to bite into it. Krogan like the tingle in every bite, but you squishy ones would probably be knocked flat on your rear for an hour, long enough for the real predators to finish the job and leave their droppings for the spuds." He chuckled, no doubt reminiscing on a time he saw exactly that.

"...And on that incredibly disturbing note, I've got a few ideas for improving the ship myself." Garrus uncomfortably diverted the conversation. "A few ideas for the ship's weapons, a couple mods here and there, nothing all that groundbreaking. It's got potential though, if you can get the improved designs approved that is. Some of them...may fall outside a few galactic treaties and weapons bans." He awkwardly twitched his mandibles, shrinking slightly under Ashley's reproachful gaze. "I'm sure it's nothing a SPECTRE's authority couldn't squeeze through a few loopholes, or just cut the red tape altogether."

"I already did you a solid helping you catch Dr. Saleon, and now you're asking me to have outlawed equipment installed in my ship?" Shepard playfully scolded Garrus, who could only shrug in his defense. Rolling her eyes, she let out a scoff of laughter. "You're lucky none of our laws on war crimes are likely to matter when the Reapers show up on our doorstep. Send Tali and I the schematics for the mods you have in mind, and we'll see how we can incorporate them into the rest of the improvements."

"Must the conversations among this crew always lead back to weapons, death, Reapers, Saren and other apocalyptic threats?" Shiala questioned before swallowing an entire protein bar down her thickly muscled neck in two bites. "Why can't we talk about something more lighthearted for a change?"

"Oh! I got it!" Kaidan raised his hand eagerly. "Tell us about those other versions of Ben you saw while you were melded with him!"

"That does sound quite interesting." Liara seconded in fascination as Ben felt a looming sense of dread building up in his gut. "You mentioned something about a version of Ben that seduced fairies and fought...a giant turtle creature if I recall."

"Oh, I have got to hear more about this." Joker grinned like his DC Comics namesake. "Finally, news about Tennyson I'll actually be happy to hear."

"This is because I'm dating Shepard, Tali, Liara and an Asari She-Hulk, isn't it?" Ben glanced at Joker dully.

"I'm only human Ben." Joker shrugged as he took a bite of his mac-n-cheese. "Technically I'm less than that, what with the brittle bones, and all the braces, implants and medicine I need to take for them. Let me have my laughs where I can get them."

"...Fine!" Ben sighed dramatically as he turned to Shiala. "I've gotta admit, I'm kinda curious what the other versions of me are up to. But we're starting with something other than the Ben that's flirting with fairies."

"Very well." Shiala nodded eagerly as she searched her thoughts for a good place to start. "Now then, which one to begin with?"

 **And this seems like a good place to stop for now. Sorry this chapter took so long to get out, but my motivation to do anything has been shot for the past few months. It's no excuse, but keep in mind that I don't get paid for this. Anyway, not much to say except: please review to my story, these omake about what the other versions of Ben are doing will be at the end of every chapter from now on, you are free to ask me in my PM Box for permission to write your own stories about these other versions of Ben, and keep enjoying my work!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hey there everybody! Forgot to say this earlier, but as of last chapter, we are officially past the halfway point of Part 1 of Mass Effect 10. Thank you all for hanging with me so far, and please continue to support me in the future. And by support, I mean things like fan art on Deviantart, and a TVTropes page...Just a few suggestions mind you, no need to go overboard on my account...not that I'd complain if you did...**

 **On a related note, my buddy "Wrath of The Sun Deity" recently started a spin-off to this story featuring one of the other clones of Ben in the Winx Club universe, and it's called "Winx Club: World 10-1". I'll spare you the finer details of it and just recommend that you read it to judge for yourself. It's off to a good start, and we'll work together to keep each other motivated, so here's hoping we keep each other on track, and get all our chapters out faster in the future.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 13

The Tales of The Citadel

 **Tales of The Normandy - Citadel Docking Station**

"Alright team, shut your mouths and listen up!" Shepard barked as she stood in front of the entire crew, who had assembled just in front of the exit to the ship. "I've just been informed that it will be precisely eight hours before the Normandy is restocked, refueled, repaired, reinforced and otherwise ready to go! During that time, everyone not already assigned to those tasks is on shore leave! Remember, just because you're off duty doesn't mean your actions don't reflect on your station, and on the rest of your comrades! That said..." She said as she opened the airlock. "Go enjoy yourselves, you miserable pyjaks!" She commanded sarcastically, sending half the crew running off running and shouting, and the other half off on a more reserved, but still excited pace. "God, I love my job sometimes." She shook her head and sighed wistfully, going off after them last. However, no sooner was she off the ship than did she catch sight of a superior officer. "Ten-HUT!" She immediately saluted on instinct.

"At ease." The man acknowledged Shepard's salute. "Read Admiral Mikhailovich, Fifth Fleet." He introduced himself formally.

"Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy." The Commander responded in kind.

"You don't know who I am, do you Commander?" Mikhailovich inquired impartially. "I command the 63rd Scout Flotilla. You and the Normandy were slated for my unit after shakedown. Then the Council got their paws, claws, tentacles, whatever - they got them on our ship, and you." He noted darkly.

Before Shepard could respond to the accusation, she felt a tap on her shoulder. "This seems like military stuff." Ben whispered to her. "I'll just go ahead and meet you at the restaurant just outside the Citadel Tower, okay?" Getting a quick nod in response, he gave her a quick thumbs up before leaving. "Cool."

"Captain Anderson made it clear to me that my assignment came from way up in the brass." Shepard informed the Rear Admiral formally. "They say jump, I say, how high?"

"Remember that when I tell you to jump." Mikhailovich responded, allowing half a laugh to sneak into his voice at the end. "I don't begrudge the politicians decision to throw you to the Council, it's an opportunity." He explained, though it sounded like he was forcing himself to mean it. "I do begrudge this over-designed piece of tin." He gestured disparagingly at the Normandy.

"The Normandy's a fine ship, sir." Shepard defended her vessel fondly. "She's served us well so far."

"It's a gimmick Commander. Useless in a stand-up fight." Mikhailovich shook his head in disapproval. "This...experiment, diverted billions from our appropriations bills. For the same price we could have had a heavy cruiser, but no, we had to make nice to the Turians. Throw money at a co-developed boondoggle." He clapped his fist in his open palm strictly. "I'm here to make an inspection, Commander. The Normandy is an Alliance warship, I intend to see if she is up to snuff."

"We'd be honored to show her to you, Admiral." Shepard nodded respectfully, easily pushing down the fury she felt at having her ship insulted.

"I'll just bet." Mikhailovich responded as he entered the ship. "Wait here, I won't be long."

 **...**

 **Ten Minutes Later**

"Commander, I'm not happy." Mikhailovich shook his head with a frown as he exited the Normandy.

"What did you find out aboard it?" Shepard inquired calmly, already having prepared a mental laundry list of everything there might be to complain about, as well as a succinct counterpoint.

"Who designed that CIC?" He shook his head in disapproval. "Putting the Commander aft of everyone else is inefficient. What if they need to discuss with the operators towards the bow?"

"Modified Turian style." Shepard answered easily, secretly agreeing with his point, but understanding the compromises that had to be made. "They prefer Commanders looking over their subordinates, rather than in the middle of them. We wanted to see how effectively they could command with that setup."

"Hmm, reasonable goal." He reluctantly consented. "But they should have studied that in a lab, rather than on a front line warship." He took a breath to collect himself. "I had to shake my head at that drive core of yours. 120 billion credits of Element Zero to make this thing able to move without giving itself away? You realize we could make drive cores for 12,000 fighters with that money?!" He let out a slight hiss in anger. "What good is it to hide for a few hours anyway? Useless!"

"Men of limited vision said the same thing about early aircrafts, submarines and tanks." Shepard replied derisively of her insulting superior, before thinking better of it and clarifying her point better. "We can loiter in an enemy system and monitor traffic, or drop infiltration teams on enemy worlds." She defended to cost-to-benefit ratio. "Normandy can be more effective than the Salarian STG."

"There's two ways I could take that Commander, but that is true." Mikhailovich reluctantly consented to the point Shepard was making. "I suppose the early U-boats weren't much better. But that's not the job of a proper warship." He put his foot down hotly. "We're supposed to find and kill the enemy fleet, not count how many times their garrison goes to the bathroom. And we need to talk about your crew, Commander." He muttered disparagingly. "Krogan? Turians?!" He spat hotly, his prejudice for the First Contact Wars showing. "An ambassador from another galaxy, who was designed to look Human?! What are you thinking, Commander?! You can't allow alien nationals free access to Alliance equipment! Especially not an alien who represents a territory and society we know nothing about, and have no way to reach!"

"Between Saren, the Geth, and the Reapers backing both of them, we have enough enemies out here." Shepard defended her choice to trust her choice of team, her relationship with Ben making her especially protective. "Treating other species with suspicion and distrust won't win hearts and minds. As for the society Ambassador Tennyson represents, I believe I've already made reports about what he's told and shown me of the ten most dominant species in the Andromeda galaxy represented in his DNA." Left unsaid was that those reports were based on information from another universe, rather than another galaxy, and that she'd replaced information on Celestialsapiens with that of Galvans.

"That assumes the hearts and minds are worth winning." He answered skeptically. "That hasn't been proven yet. As for the reports you've made, while some of them seem reasonable enough, I find it very doubtful that an entire society could evolve on the surface of a star!" He shook his head to cool his jets. "You have anything else you wish to say, Commander? Any other justifications for the state of this vessel?"

"I think the Normandy is a good ship, sir." Jane answered honestly. "Granted, my crew and I have compiled a laundry list of well over a hundred improvements both small and large that we think would make any future models of this ship more efficient in terms of cost and utility, so you're not the first to raise concerns of similar nature." She consented to his complaints as she took the liberty to forward the list they'd compiled to Mikhailovich. "Even if you disagree, you have to see that her joint construction and multiracial crew make the Alliance look better. Not to mention the possible improvements we've compiled might have uses for other types of ships."

"Your job is to look good, Commander. The Alliance Navy's is to win wars." The Rear Admiral clenched his fist strictly. "I'm not convinced Normandy isn't a waste of taxpayer money. But I am convinced that you believe otherwise. And that you'll use it to its best ability." He let out a puff of air and cooled down slightly. "I'll be submitting a report to the Joint Military Council. It will not be as negative as I had planned, especially since some of these possible modifications look promising...if somewhat illegal in some places." He frowned skeptically as he gave the list he'd been given a quick once over. "Good hunting Commander Shepard. Make us proud." He saluted before making his exit.

"...What an ass." Jane shook her head once she was certain he was out of earshot. "I'd report his behavior to the brass, but with the Reapers coming, we need all the capable military officers we can get at the helm. Ass or not, he's still one of the best." She sighed tiredly as she went off to meet her lunch date.

 **...**

 **Tale of Garrus Vakarian - Dr. Michel's Office**

Garrus didn't really have anything in particular he wanted to do on his brief shore leave, so he just decided to wander aimlessly and see where his feet ended up taking him. Unfortunately for him, old force of habit kicked in, and before he knew it he was just a hop and skip away from C-Sec headquarters. "I really don't want to go back there." He shook his head with a tired sigh, recalling just how much of a scene he'd caused before leaving to join up with Shepard's crew. The exact details of his...retirement, hadn't been a big deal by most species standards, but Turians weren't most species, and the disrespect he'd shown his former superiors on the way out had particularly insulting. Even so, he was still half tempted to go in anyway to gloat to them about how he'd tracked down and apprehended Dr. Saleon exactly where he'd said the mad doctor probably was back when he was in C-Sec, only to be ignored on grounds of 'insubstantial evidence', and was half a step in that direction to do exactly that when something caught his gaze out of the corner of his eye.

"Dr. Michel's officer..." He hummed to himself thoughtfully as he recalled his first shootout with Shepard's team. "Why not? She'll probably be more appreciative of the tales of my heroism anyway." He shrugged before casually letting himself in. As he spied the good doctor in front of her terminal, he was about to walk up to greet her when he overheard her talking to someone over the phone.

"I need those supplies for my clinic. I can't!" Dr. Michel said worriedly to whoever was on the other end.

"You can and you will." The guttural voice on the other end demanded. "Or your story won't stay secret for long." That got Garrus's attention immediately, making his mandibles flare in anger at what was clearly blackmail. "Don't disappoint me, Doctor." The Blackmailer finished before suddenly hanging up, prompting Garrus to approach and make his presence known.

"Oh, Garrus." Dr. Michel jolted nervously as she noticed him. "I didn't see you come in."

"Seems every time I run into you there's some kind of trouble." Garrus remarked suavely. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were getting into trouble on purpose just so I can keep coming to your rescue."

"Of course I'm not..." Dr. Michel chuckled sheepishly as she fixed her hair. "Getting in trouble on purpose, I mean!" She hastily amended. "I am in trouble, but...it's nothing too serious, really. Just someone from my past, that's all. I can take care of it." She assured him with more confidence than she felt.

"Forgive me for being direct, Dr. Michel, but that didn't sound like the sort of call that a lone doctor running a small clinic can take care of." Garrus remarked casually as he leaned on the counter. "Just tell me what the problem is, and I'll see if I can make it...disappear." He mock-flirted, acting out a film noir he'd seen once.

"...Well, when you put it like that." Dr. Michel shuffled her feet as the blood started rushing to her cheeks. "I was fired by my previous employer for giving out free medical supplies to clinics like this." She explained immediately. "They never filed any charges. They just wanted me to leave without a fuss. But somebody must have found out. Now they're blackmailing me." She held her head in one hand. "I have to give them what they want. If the board finds out about my past, I could lose my license. They'll shut my clinic down."

"A lone doctor crossing all the lines, just trying to make a difference for the better." Garrus waxed 'poetically' as he pushed himself off the counter. "Just tell me what the barefaced pyjak wants, and I'll take care of the rest." He assured her.

"I have to give some of my medical supplies to a merchant in the markets." She replied just a bit too quickly. "They expect delivery today."

"Give me a name and a location." Garrus demanded smoothly as he stood just centimeters away from her. "I'll make sure they never trouble you again."

"...kiss me now..." Dr. Michel whispered thirstily, shocking Garrus into a slight blinking fit. When she realized what she'd said, she quickly backed up and made an effort to look anywhere but at Garrus. "...The merchant's name is Morlan, a Salarian down in the markets. I'm pretty certain he's just the middleman though." She answered quickly. "...Be careful, Garrus."

"Life's too short for 'careful'." Garrus boasted smoothly before walking out the door, leaving Dr. Michel to collapse to her knees.

"...What a man..." Dr. Michel smiled dreamily.

 **...**

 **5 Minutes Later - Lower Markets**

Garrus strode across the room, acting completely aimless and distracted with practiced ease, sting operations like this being old hat to him after his years at C-Sec. After a minute of fake window shopping, he stopped in at the sales kiosk Dr. Michel had told him about.

"Hello there. Welcome to Morlan's famous shop." The Salarian behind the counter nodded enthusiastically. "You want many good supplies, yes?"

"Actually, I hear tell that you're waiting on a shipment of supplies yourself." Garrus drummed his fingers on the counter thoughtfully, causing Morlan to swallow nervously. "Medical supplies, to be specific."

"...But I was told the doctor would be bringing them..." Morlan wiped his horns nervously, obviously unprepared for an armored Turian to come investigating.

"She's not, and neither am I." Garrus gave the shopkeeper a hard glare, causing him to take a step back in fear.

"But...the doctor...I don't...This is not right, Turian." Morlan stuttered nervously.

"Shut up Morlan!" An irate Krogan marched into the conversation. "I told Banes you'd screw this up!" He glared at Garrus. "What the hell's going on here? Who are you?!" He demanded.

"What's going on here, is that I owe the good Dr. Michel a favor, and I'm here to make you stop blackmailing her." Garrus answered with a dangerous edge in his tone. "As for who I am, I'm the Turian who's working with the first human SPECTRE. Which gives me full authority to do whatever I want to get rid of any obstacles obstructing official investigations." The Krogan's eyes widened slightly at the thinly veiled threat. "Which brings us to my question." In an instant, Garrus drew his gun, and Morlan shot to the ground in a panic. "Are you an obstacle?"

"Hey, hold on!" The Krogan wisely held his hands up. "I'm just the middleman here." He shook his head tiredly. "Dealing with a SPECTRE's crew. This is way more than I bargained for." And with that, he walked off, leaving Garrus to holster his gun.

"Thank you, Turian." Morlan dusted his hands gratefully as he got up. "It is good to see him humbled so."

"Enough chatter." Garrus leaned back on the counter. "What can you tell me about this Banes fellow your friend was talking about?"

"I have never met him, Turian." Morlan shook his head. "I only worked with the one who spoke with the doctor."

Garrus studied Morlan for a few more seconds, before quickly deciding he was being honest and backing away. "Guess I'll go see if Dr. Michel knows anything about him then." His mandibles flared slightly as he remembered how she reacted to him. _'Seems that Tennyson it's the only ladies man on the Normandy.'_ He thought confidently as he walked off, secretly looking forward to further...discussions with the good doctor.

 **...**

 **Tales of Urdnot Wrex - Presidium**

The old Krogan was idling his time aimlessly around the area. He'd already paid his usual visit to the Krogan Monument, largely out of his typical nostalgia for how the Krogan used to be a proud and noble race of warriors and protectors, before they got too greedy and started attacking former allies - but also for another reason that he was desperately struggling what to do with. He wasn't a fool, he knew that working with Shepard, Tennyson and the rest of them was starting to get to him, make him feel like there might actually be...hope for his people to heal. _'Ugh, and here I thought I was too smart for that nonsense at my age.'_ Wrex tried to distance himself from the idea, despite how it had never been more tempting to reach for it than just before he'd last seen - and ultimately killed - his proud, angry, arrogant, selfish, idiot of a father. Ultimately, he just let himself get lost in his thoughts for a while...or at least he tried to, as a pair of humans arguing furiously nearby was too loud for him to just tune out. _'One of the drawbacks of having such sensitive ears I suppose.'_ He sighed before giving up on some peace and quiet, and deciding to just play eavesdropper for a bit.

"I'm telling you, this is not what Jake would want!" The man practically shouted at the woman he was glaring at.

"Who are you to tell me what my husband would want?!" The woman shouted back angrily.

"I'm the only person making sense right now! You're endangering your baby!" The man shot back, actually getting Wrex's attention, though whether that was good or bad was up for debate.

"This baby is the only thing I have left of Jake!" The woman said angrily even as Wrex marched up behind her to give them both a piece of his mind. "I don't care what you think, Michael! It's my decision!"

"Uh...Rebekah..." Michael trembled fearfully as he pointed a shaky finger at the 8 foot tall tower of angry Krogan behind her, just as Wrex made his presence known to her by letting a large puff of air flare out his nostrils onto the back of her head, instantly making her turn around in shock and fright.

"Excuse me." Wrex inserted himself in-between the arguing pair, both physically and socially. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, sensitive ears and all that." He glared at the man, then at the woman. "Mind letting an old man with about a millennium and four centuries of experience weigh in on whatever you two seem to be squabbling about? Something about a baby?" He nearly laughed when the woman's eyes widened in fear and concern at the mention of the word 'baby', but decided against it when he realized that it would probably make them run off like frightened pyjaks.

"Uh...well..." Michael stuttered nervously as he tried to figure out how to respond. "My sister-in-law here is...pregnant, and she's refused to let the baby undergo gene therapy in utero."

"Is that so?" Wrex remarked thoughtfully as he turned the focus of his gaze at Rebekah. "And why, pray tell, would an unborn baby need to get this gene therapy?"

"Well..." Rebekah gulped nervously as she found her shoulder pinned in Wrex's solid grip. "My husband, Jacob, died from a rare heart condition several months ago." She began explaining.

"There's a chance that the baby could develop the same heart condition, but routine gene therapy can eliminate it." Michael spoke up, seeing how distressed his sister-in-law was.

"A very small chance, Michael!" Rebekah stood up for herself hotly, overcoming her fear of Wrex through raw anger. "And extranet reports say the gene therapy could harm the child!"

"It's less dangerous than the genetic enhancements that every soldier in the Alliance receives!" Michael argued furiously, both of them apparently forgetting that there was currently a very tense Krogan literally looming over their shoulders.

"Alright! That's enough nonsense out of both of you!" Wrex shouted louder than either of them as he sat them both down on a nearby bench. "You!" He pointed at Michael. "What are the chances the baby gets the disease its father died from?!"

"...O-One in Fifty..." Michael answered fearfully.

"And you!" Wrex pointed at Rebekah, who was trembling in her seat. "What are the chances the gene therapy your brother-in-law wants your baby to get backfire?!"

"...One in Three-Hundred..." Rebekah shivered as she held her stomach region protectively.

"One in Fifty, and One in Three-Hundred..." Wrex hummed before taking a deep breath and blowing out on both of the worried humans slowly. "Tell me, do either of you know the chances that ANY Krogan eggs survive the Genophage and live to hatch?" They both shook their heads 'no'. "...One in One-Thousand. From where I stand, neither one of you has any right to complain about this kid's chances, especially when most Krogan would give up all their redundant organs just for a few of their hatchlings to be as blessed as your baby." He stepped back and shook his head sadly at the now deeply contemplating duo. "I don't wanna take things to a numbers game, that's the excuse the Salarians made for developing the Genophage, and the Turians made for using it. Did my people deserve it back then? Probably. Do we still deserve it well over a thousand years later? Probably not. That's why I'm putting aside my pride and playing the numbers game, because as hard as it is to accept when you and the ones you love are on the suffering end of them, numbers don't lie." He pointed at Rebekah. "Get the gene therapy. There's a one in fifty chance the kid dies if you don't get it, and a one in three-hundred chance it dies if you do. Either way, your odds are way better than a Krogan's."

"...But, there are other treatments..." Rebekah struggled weakly to defend her stance. "Less dangerous, and they can be done after the baby's born, when they can decide for themselves..."

"Did those 'other treatments' save your husband?" Wrex questioned with as much empathy as he could muster, causing Rebekah to break down in tears as Michael held her close.

"I...think you should leave now..." Michael glared at Wrex with what little bravado he could manage. "Rebekah and I are hurt enough from my brother's death without you making us both feel worse about it."

"No..." Rebekah said weakly, her voice still trembling slightly. "He's right...I have to do everything I can for my baby. I'm getting the gene therapy." She said resolutely as she wiped her tears, gazing gratefully at Wrex. "Thank you...for helping me make the right decision for my child."

"I wouldn't exactly say it's the 'right' decision." Wrex shrugged nonchalantly. "Keep in mind, there's still a one in three-hundred chance it's the 'wrong' decision. Still, it's definitely the 'best' decision."

"Thank you anyway...I never even got your name." Rebekah shook her head with an embarrassed chuckle.

"The name's Wrex, of Clan Urdnot." Wrex let a genuine smile grace his ugly mug before walking off. "If your kid's a boy, feel free to name him after me." He stopped briefly, and added as an afterthought. "If it's a girl, you can name it Garrus." And with that, he was off again.

 **...**

 **Tales of Tali'Zorah - Citadel Tower**

After arriving at the Citadel Lounge with her boyfriend Ben and her fellow girlfriends Liara and Shiala, Tali decided to take a quick trip up to the Council Chambers to see how some of their local allies were faring in their negotiations with the bullheaded members of said Council. To say she was happily impressed to walk in on General Septimus and Sha'ira The Consort in the midst of giving Councilors Sparatus and Tevos a serious headache regarding AI rights and granting aid to her fellow Quarians was a gross understatement. Councilor Valern taking the opposition's side more often than not - while siting several previously established arguments, bits of evidence and precedence - brought a special smile to her masked face every time he made Septimus look like he was gonna blow a gasket, or left Tevos flummoxing for a retort where none was to be found.

"I know how you must feel watching this." A human woman - clearly a reporter, if the camera drone over her shoulder was anything to go by - remarked as she walked up next to Tali. "It's a conflicting feeling, knowing that half of them are supporting both your people and something you hate, while the other half are insulting what you hate, but also your people."

"Actually, I'm pro AI rights." Tali explained proudly, snorting up a brief laugh at the dumbfounded expression on the reporter's face. "I know, a Quarian who supports AIs, it must be the end of the galaxy." She joked with a double dose of irony.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume...I just thought that you being a Quarian...and that's literally the textbook definition of assumptions." The woman flummoxed before she extended a hand. "Can I just start over, please? Emily Wong, professional reporter."

"Tali'Zorah." Tali shook the offered hand happily. "Shepard told me about you. Something about providing you with evidence on corruption."

"You work with Commander Shepard?" Emily grinned from ear-to-ear. "That's just perfect. Do you think you could go get her for me? I'm investigating another story, but these clowns trying and failing miserably to defend outdated and frankly idiotic laws and policies have had all my attention for weeks now. If she could help me crack another story while I'm busy here, that'd be very appreciated, and very worth her while."

"I could probably do the job for you myself." Tali boasted eagerly. "Any chance to stick it to these power hungry bosh'tets is too good to pass up."

"Well...it'd be nice if you could..." Emily hummed thoughtfully before shrugging. "Why not? With how hard your friends up there have been pushing for better treatment for Quarians, political correctness will probably make this job safer for you anyway." She pulled Tali in close to whisper to her. "I'm investigating traffic controller conditions now. I've heard rumors that the space traffic controllers are overworked to a dangerous degree. I can't get into the control room, but if you're really working with Commander Shepard, then you probably could. If you or the commander plant a bug inside, I could crack the story."

"What sort of waves would this story be making?" Tali inquired even as she began brainstorming possible benefits.

"Ideally, there will be calls to improve working conditions by hiring more controllers and upgrading systems." Emily answered. "The Council won't pay for improvements voluntarily. This story will provide that pressure, and with how much fire they're coming under lately, any time a quick and easy PR boost is brought up, they pounce on it just to take some of the pressure off the major issues." She shook her head hawkishly. "A stopgap at best, especially since they always self-sabotage their PR again within a day, but it's best to strike while the iron's hot."

"I like the sound of that." Tali bounced slightly. "What sort of bug do you need? I've got plenty of different models."

"I'm...a little frightened now, but you don't need to worry about the bug." Emily replied hesitantly as she handed over a small device. "I've already got a bug for you to place. It's just for picking up audio and video. I'm not interested in tapping into the traffic control system...so please don't bounce like you're planning to do just that." She requested nervously. "I just need to see and hear them in order to correlate their activity with traffic efficiency."

"...I don't bounce. And I don't want to hack the control systems." Tali deadpanned as she took the bug. "Give me the bug, I'll help you get your story."

"Excellent!" Emily hissed in excitement. "Just place it on a console with a good view of the area. And thanks again for your help. In the long run, this story is going to save lives."

"The long run, huh?" Tali sighed wistfully as the looming threat of the Reapers bubbled into her mind. "A lot of things I'm involved in right now seem to focus on that."

"It's the only sensible way to look at things." Emily nodded gratefully as she got back to focusing on Sparatus on the brink of a meltdown. "I'll probably still be here when you plant the bug, so feel free to come back for your reward once you do." Waving each other goodbye, Tali made her way to a nearby transit station, while also sending a message to Ben to let him know she'd be a little late getting back.

 **...**

 **Later - C-Sec Academy**

After getting to C-Sec, Tali received more than a few odd glances and silent glares from various individuals. However, as soon as she noticed someone trying - and failing - to follow her inconspicuously - a tragically common occurrence that she had much practice spotting - she almost immediately recalled something Emily had said when they spoke. "I wonder if I should talk to Commander Shepard or Ambassador Tennyson about Salarian law enforcement being closet racists." She thought to herself a little too loudly. "And yes, I have cameras in the back of my suit." She smoothly lied when it was clear the officer wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. When she continued on and it became clear she still wasn't getting any results, she remembered some advice Wrex had given her about the benefits of working for a SPECTRE.+

In a quarter of a second, she had spun around and aimed her gun at the nosy Salarian trying to play innocent. "Did you not hear me the first two times, you bosh'tet?!" She demanded hotly of the Salarian, who had fumbled trying to draw his own gun and was now holding his hands lamely in the air. "I work for a SPECTRE! That means I can legally kill anyone who posses a potential obstruction to any official business, and it would be months, if not years before anything I do comes under review! Do you want to die?!" The Salarian shook his head fearfully. "Then go to your immediate superior and write up a report of your racist behavior!" When the Salarian didn't make any move to do so - most likely due to his legs being too busy knocking together to work right - she gave him one last push. "I don't mean tomorrow, I mean now!" That finally sent him running. Glancing around at all the nervous stares she was getting, Tali decided to clear the air. "And what exactly is so interesting to all of you?!" That got rid of the stares. "That's what I thought." She snickered as she continued to her destination. A quick flight of stairs and some casual glances around later, and she had successfully planted the bug.

 _'I wonder how well investigative journalism pays.'_ Tali thought to herself as she made her way back to rendezvous with Emily. _'A girl could get used to this sort of routine.'_ She snickered as she reveled in her newfound power.

 **...**

 **Tales of Ben Tennyson - Embassy Lounge**

Sitting at a table in the corner of the Lounge were Ben, Liara and Shiala, enjoying one of the brief periods of respite they've had as a crew since Ben's arrival in this universe.

"Do you guys feel like we never do anything normal anymore?" Ben asked absently before taking a long, satisfying slurp of his smoothie.

"Could you please define 'normal' and 'anymore' for me?" Liara questioned in genuine uncertainty. "Because since the moment I joined up with the Normandy crew, I don't think I've ever experienced anything I would describe as such. Other than deciphering Prothean Data Drives that is, and even that barely qualifies due to how rare they are under normal circumstances."

"I'm still new myself, but I don't think that's what he had in mind." Shiala remarked before slurping up some sort of green, Asari-made noodles with a vivid yellow sauce. "I think he means things like just sitting around, talking, sharing food, perhaps watching a movie together. Normal romantic gestures, or simply time together as friends."

"Seems like we don't really have much time for such matters." Liara noted sadly before gracefully eating some blue vegetables that looked vaguely like Brussels sprouts. "My research takes up much of my time between missions, while meals haven't been a social event so much as something that happens when we have the time."

"We'll have to fix that then." Ben smirked as an idea began to form in him mind. "How about this; from now on, every time the whole ground team gets together for dinner, we'll have Shiala tell everyone about one of the other mes floating around in the Omniverse."

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I heard you correctly." Shiala remarked scandalously. "Did you just consent to having me embarrass you in front of the crew on a regular basis?"

"...Maybe not if you're gonna put it that way." Ben backpedaled uncertainly. "I gotta admit though, part of me is really curious how the other versions of me are faring out there. I mean, the me that got saddled with Ghostfreak has it pretty rough." He winced as he recalled the story Shiala had shared after first being questioned about the other Bens. "But if his story is as bad as it gets, I'm fine learning about the others."

"Oh, it gets worse." Shiala immediately dashed his hopes. "Much worse."

"Though when you really think about it, fighting an ancient race of genocidal AIs bent on destroying all life in the galaxy in a never-ending cycle is pretty bad already." Liara reminded them of their mission. "The fact that they've managed to brainwash the Council's best SPECTRE to do their bidding is just the icing on the cake."

"Excuse me for a moment!" A woman with a camera drone following her interjected as she approached the group. "Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani, Westerlund News." The reporter introduced herself, paying no mind to the Asari of unusual size and color at the table to focus exclusively on Ben. "I came here because my sources told me of your arrival back on the Citadel, Ambassador Tennyson, and I was hoping to have a word with you regarding the various policies and standards of the Andromeda Galaxy, and your plans for relations between our two galaxies, but I couldn't help but overhear the tail end of your conversation." He motor mouth and what it was saying put the group on edge. "Mind explaining to our viewers what you and your colleagues mean by an 'ancient race of genocidal AIs' as you so eloquently put it?" She inquired assertively, disregarding the fact that it was Liara and not Ben who had said that.

Ben, knowing from hard experience the various types of reporters there were, quickly identified this Khalisah woman as a misguided muckraker. She clearly had good intentions, and wanted to press for answers to the hard questions no one wanted to answer even though everyone wanted to ask, but was perhaps a bit too eager for a scoop, and too quick to assume the worst in authority figures.

 _'Sort of reminds me of Jimmy.'_ Ben thought to himself wistfully as he recalled the kid, idly wondering what he was getting up to back in his old universe. _'Wonder if she could help us put the right kind of pressure on the Council to get them ready for the Reapers.'_ He thought back to the message Tali had sent him a few minutes ago, already pondering how to squeeze the Council for every drop of assistance he could get from them. "I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have Miss...Khalisah, was it?" He replied as he guided her over to the entrance, gesturing for Liara and Shiala to wait for him at the table. "Before we get into that however, I'd like to have a quick discussion with you regarding journalistic integrity."

"Uh...alright then." Khalisah responded, feeling slightly less confident about this interview than she was when she walked in.

A long and heavy silence hung over the pair of Asari before either of them spoke. "...So how much of a PR nightmare do you think the Council should expect from this?" Shiala asked Liara casually.

"Knowing Ben as I do?" Liara let out a puff of a chuckle. "It will be ugly. Toepick ugly." It took her a moment to remember that Shiala hadn't yet been informed by Ben about the various aliens he'd lost in the cloning process that made him. "Ah, I should probably explain the joke. You see, Toepick is-"

"Ben's name for his transformation into the single ugliest species in his home universe?" Shiala completed Liara's statement before she could. "Yes, I am already aware of it. My bonding with him was quite thorough as you will recall." She explained nonchalantly.

"Ah, of course." Liara nodded in understanding, before the both of them went back to their meals. "I do hope he doesn't say anything too overwhelming to that poor reporter."

 **...**

 **Meanwhile - Outside Embassy Lounge**

Khalisah found herself entirely overwhelmed by what ambassador Tennyson had told her. She had initially approached him in hopes of simply slandering the Council a bit, and maybe giving Humanity a bit more of a boost based on the fact that a genetically engineered ambassador from another galaxy was specifically made in the form of a Human. Instead of being able to slant the interview in that direction however, he immediately lectured her about the values of fact-checking and journalistic integrity, before finding herself in the most unusual position of having to try and reign in some of the more biting facts he was telling her about, while struggling to keep up with what he was saying all the way.

"...So let me see if I'm getting all of this straight, Ambassador Tennyson." Khalisah said as she checked her notes mutely. "If what you're saying is true, then ex-SPECTRE Saren Arterius is not only the primary culprit behind the attack on Eden Prime and the theft of the Prothean Beacon unearthed there, and that the Council intentionally and knowingly tried to cover his tracks, but also that he has been brainwashed by an ancient race of genocidal AIs known as 'Reapers'?" She paused to flip to another page of notes in her Omni-tool. "And he is working with a splinter faction of the Geth that refer to themselves as 'Heretics', in an effort to bring the Reapers back into the galaxy from the dark space outside it, so that they can wipe out all space-faring life in the galaxy, in a cycle of extinction that has repeated itself an unknown number of times every 50,000 galactic standard years." She stopped to catch her breath and scroll to the next page of her notes. "Furthermore, according to hacked data obtained by one 'Tali'Zorah nar Rayya', the Geth referring to themselves as 'Heretics' only represent approximately one-fourth of the sum total of all Geth, whereas the 'True' Geth that stayed behind in the Perseus Veil are not only against the Reapers, but are open to and in favor of the idea of reconciliation with their Quarian creators if they can prove they will respect them as sentient individuals?"

"We've come to prefer the term Indoctrination to Brainwashing, but that pretty much sums it up." Ben confirmed with a pleasant smile. "We've already looked into a few leads on Therum and Feros, and after we handle a few things here on the Citadel we'll continue our investigation. I can tell you about how the first two leads panned out since those cases are more or less closed, but anything beyond that is part of an ongoing investigation, and has to stay confidential for the time being." He offered generously.

Khalisah just stared at Ben quietly for several long seconds, her expression completely stone faced. Eventually, she motioned her hand across her neck, signalling her camera drone to cut the feed. "...Look, Ambassador Tennyson, off the record, I'm going to be completely honest with you." She began with an unusual calmness. "And if you knew me as well as, well, pretty much everyone else I've ever interviewed in my career, you'd know that this is completely out of character for me, but there's no way I can report this."

"I had a feeling you weren't exactly the most morally upstanding of reporters." Ben replied smoothly.

"Then why agree to an interview with me at all?!" Khalisah asked in astonishment. "Most people just punch me the moment they have me figured out, while you just threw caution to the wind and gave me the most outlandish story I've ever heard!"

"So you don't believe me, then?" Ben folded his arms, never losing his cool smile.

"I didn't say that!" Khalisah amended her statement as she tried to gather her thoughts. "...There are parts of it I can believe. Saren attacking Eden Prime, the division between the Heretic Geth and the True Geth, the Council defending Saren against all but the most overwhelming evidence and trying to sweep everything under the rug..."

"But you don't believe in the Reapers?" Ben finished her train of thought.

"More like I don't want to." Khalisah looked down morosely. "If that part is true...if these Reapers really have been wiping out all space-faring sentient life in the galaxy every 50,000 years...the amount of mass panic and hysteria this information would cause if it were provable beyond the shadow of a doubt..."

"Technically, as of now, it can't be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt." Ben interjected helpfully. "Everything else I've told you so far? Easily provable with the information and contacts we've gathered. What happened on Therum and Feros? Same thing, with plenty of witnesses besides myself to boot. The Reapers?" Ben shook his head sadly. "Any proof I had of them was lost when Saren blew-up my ship and swiped the salvage."

"...So I can report of what we have proof of to increase public awareness of the dangers and put pressure of the politicians to fix the problems, while keeping quiet about the Reapers to prevent mass hysteria." Khalisah pieced together a semi-solution to the problem they were facing. "I think I can work with that, but we'll have to do the interview over with that in mind."

"Sounds like a plan." Ben grinned as he dusted his hands in accomplishment. "Whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready right now!" Khalisah grinned eagerly as she turned to reactivate her camera drone, but stopping just short of the 'on' button. "And as for why you agreed to my interview, despite me being paparazzi at best...this is the reason why, isn't it?" She turned to him knowingly.

"Looks like you do have a keen eye for journalism after all." Ben chuckled in approval. "You just needed the right nudge to bring it to the surface."

"Thanks for that, by the way." Khalisah smiled gratefully. "Alright, from the top: Lights. Camera. Action!"

 **...**

 **Omake 2: Tales of Another Ben: Normandy - Mess Hall**

"I think you should start with the me that got fused with Ghostfreak." Ben requested of Shiala. "I'm kinda worried about how that version of me is doing, being fused with an evil alien ghost can't be good for his psyche."

"Indeed it is not." Shiala answered sadly. "But worse than the mind he now shares is the environment he now exists in." Gathering her thoughts, a faint biotic glow fluttered around her as her eyes turned black. Then, as if in a trance, she spoke in an echoing voice. "Trapped in a great tomb, this Ben is forced to go by the pseudonym of B'Skayr to conceal his identity from the many threats around him." As if in response to her description, the biotic glow in her hand her formed into a very detailed figure that looked like a tall and gaunt teenage boy in a robe and chains made from Ghostfreak's outer skin. Upon closer inspection however, what looked like just a gaunt face was actually an exposed skull with a single eye, leaving the observers various degrees of disturbed. "The DNA samples you call Ghostfreak, Blitzwolfer, Snare-oh, Frankenstrike and Whampire are all contained in this single body, their host able to manifest any traits of them at will." As she explained this, the image of B'Skayr shifted to manifest traits of any and all of these aliens, often to grotesque effect, as each of them exposed traits that looked like exposed or decayed flesh, before finally settling back into the 'default' form.

"Really not the sort of thing I wanted to see while eating." Tali said in a somewhat queasy tone. "Even if it is all in blue glow."

"I'm more amazed that there are so many species in your universe that look like classic horror movie monsters." Kaidan remarked in disbelief. "Seriously, what are the chances of that happening?"

"The universe is a big place, I'm sure there are tons of species that look like stuff from the mythologies of various other species." Ashley assured her colleague. "At least they aren't all from the same star system. That would be really freaky, wouldn't it Ben?" She turned to the man in question, only to find him deliberately avoiding eye contact with her. "...You cannot be serious right now." She deadpanned in mild despair.

"Ben's appearance and the logic behind it is the least of his concerns." Shiala addressed Tali's disgust, as well as the comments from Ashley and Kaidan. "For he finds himself forced to cope with Zs'Skayr trying to corrupt him from within, while the beings around him in the Great Tomb of Nazarick are inadvertently trying to corrupt him from without." As she continued, the energy shifted into the basic frame of a ten storied structure.

"The Great Tomb of Nazarick?" Joker parroted with a laugh. "Sounds like a name some cheesy edgelord would give their personal dungeon in an MMORPG."

"That's because that's exactly what it is." Shiala responded to Joker's joke in all seriousness, leaving the pilot stunned speechless as the energy in her hand shifted into the shape of a skeleton in an overly elaborate and imposing set of robes and other ornamentation, a large and gnarly staff in its hand. "The creators of this dungeon and all who dwell within it, the Guild of Ainz Ooal Gown, were players in an MMORPG. The last remaining member, a man who went by the screen name of Momonga, ended up embroiled in a secret terraforming plot by the corporations running his world when he didn't log off until the last moments of the servers functioning."

"I have so many questions about what you just said I don't even know where to start." Shepard remarked dully, already half-bored with the explanation.

"Then I shall continue where I feel it is appropriate." Shiala went on as the energy in her hand shifted into a globe of the Earth. "The greed of humanity in this reality led to the mass pollution of their world, rendering life almost unsustainable outside of a few super structures built in anticipation of the destruction of their environment. As a result, several decades after the self-inflected isolation of the people of this world, scientists located another reality with a clean world suitable for habitation. Instead of trying to negotiate with the locals for refuge however, they took advantage of them for more nefarious purposes." The globe in her hand split into two worlds, one with greatly different topography than the Earth. "They created the game Yggdrasil to gather players and give them power, then they took advantage of the massive energy flowing between realities to make the game and its characters and assets real in the new world, conducting a hostile terraforming project to mold the planet to their liking and amusement, while broadcasting the events in the world they were plundering as fictional entertainment in their homeworld."

"So they ruin their own world, swoop into other worlds without warning, take what they want, do what they want, kill what they want, don't give a shit about the innocent people they hurt, and laugh at their pain and suffering." Wrex grunted in disgust. "Hits a little too close to home for comfort if you don't mind me saying. Hell, even if you do mind me saying, I don't give a shit."

"I think I speak for all of us when I say that the actions of these corporations are appalling and beyond redemption or conscience." Liara frowned disdainfully, a sentiment everyone, especially the humans of the crew agreed with. "Especially since they seemed to have the time and resources to build these protective domes, but not to actually fix the problems of their pollution that would mandate the construction of them in the first place."

"A captive society of borderline slave labor to satiate their endless greed and elitism." Shiala shared in their vitriol. "The people doing the terraforming project don't even have awareness of their roll as pawns in all of this, but Paradox has warned B'Skayr of this plot, and offered him advice to turn the tables against them, and save the world they are invading. Due to the time differential between realities, a few months in their native reality is a hundred years in this new world, which they take advantage of to build a sense of mythology for their perverse amusement, dropping a new batch of players and NPCs into this new world every hundred years. The latest batch is especially horrific, as the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown modeled themselves and their NPCs as an evil empire. Now that the NPCs and the last actual 'human' in the guild have become very real and powerful monsters, the world they have been dropped in is in more peril than ever before."

"So we know what they're doing, how evil and dangerous it is, and why they all need to die." Ben summarized bluntly, his temper running unusually high from his hatred of the actions of this alternate reality. "What I most want to know is what the alternate me is doing to stop them."

"He fights them from within." Shiala answered as the energy shifted back into B'Skayr. "Masquerading as an NPC made in secret by one of the former members of the guild, Ben fights off the worst impulses from Zs'Skayr, while using the alien warlord's knowledge to hack the systems still present in the dungeon itself, to send the nightmares of Nazarick back to the world they were spawned from, with no way for the locals to stop or control them. It is a very fine line he walks, as accessing that knowledge and his shapeshifting powers comes with the price of risking mental corruption by the being that now shares his thoughts. All the while, he must also do his best to defend as many people who would otherwise be oppressed by the vile denizens of Nazarick as possible, while also trying to sway some allies to his side, all of this being done in the utmost secrecy." She smiled playfully as the energy in her hand shifted into the forms of several women, most of them dressed as maids. "This Ben, like so many others, seems to find his greatest successes in seducing women to his side."

"Aaaand, I hate you again." Joker turned to Ben jokingly. "I hate you, I hate this other Ben, I pretty much hate every version of you."

"The original me did get married to a few alien princesses, as well as an actress and a few other hotties." Ben remarked thoughtfully as he recalled Julie, Elena, Eunice, Jennifer, Ester, Looma and Attea.

"Now you're just rubbing it in." Joker pouted as he folded his arms in a huff.

 **Holy shit! That took forever to get out. Anyway, hope you liked the chapter and omake, and remember to read and review. Also, as I said at the top of the chapter, please look into the Ben 10/Winx Club crossover by my buddy "Wrath of The Sun Deity". He's got some potential, and I really want you to support him and help that potential shine on through, so make sure you read and review to his stuff too.**

 **The next chapter will be more of these little tales, hopefully followed by another omake, and the crew of the Normandy getting back on Saren's trail.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hello! Please make a TVTropes page for this story! Also, please read Winx Club: World 10-1 by my buddy Wrath of The Sun Deity.**

Mass Effect 10 Part 1

Chapter 14

The Tales of The Shepard

 **Tales of a Sole Survivor Colonist - Dock 422**

Shortly after dismissing her crew for shore leave and giving Rear Admiral Mikhailovich a quick rundown of the Normandy, Shepard made to leave for her own bit of R&R, only to be pinged on her omnitool the moment she exited the elevator off the docks.

"Commander Shepard? Sorry to bother you." The caller addressed her in a slightly thick French accent. "This is Lieutenant Girard down in the docking bay."

 _'I just left there.'_ Shepard thought to herself irately, taking deep breaths to steady her already tense nerves. _'This had better be good.'_

"There's a woman here, uh..." The lieutenant paused hesitantly. "She was rescued from Batarian slavers a few weeks ago. She's from Mindoir." That got Shepard's attention, flashbacks of a life not entirely her own, but not entirely distant shooting through her mind at the mention of that old colony. "I guess she was taken. In the raid on your town."

"When my parents died..." Shepard whispered to herself, even as conflicting images of 13 years dead parents, and still living parents she spoke with just weeks ago flickered through her gestalt of a mind. She forced her mental fatigue down and immediately went back the way she came to address this much more important issue. "What went wrong with her? You wouldn't be calling me about this for my health."

"Well...she's a little...messed up." Girard remarked uncomfortably. "She got free somehow, grabbed a gun from one of my guys. Now she's holed up here in the docking bay...she, uh...she says she wants to die."

"Say no more, I started heading your way the moment you mentioned Mindoir." Shepard responded as she tapped her foot irritably, cursing how slow the elevators on the Citadel were with every passing nanosecond. "Shepard, out." She said as she cut the feed, the elevator doors mercifully opening shortly after she did.

"Commander. Glad to see you." Girard saluted Shepard the moment she arrived.

"Wish it were under better circumstances." Shepard nodded in response. "Where is she?"

"Behind those shipping containers." Girard answered. "I've got a sniper positioned, but I don't think we'll need him. She's only a danger to herself." He explained, jumping into a metaphorical fire before immediately jumping back out. "We've got a sedative to calm her down, but we can't get close to her. Every step we take gets her more wound up."

"I don't need a sedative, and I certainly don't need a sniper." Shepard insisted stalwartly. "If I'm not able to save even a single life by myself, then I don't deserve my job or any of my awards."

"If you say so." Girard replied hesitantly. "Don't push her too hard. If she seems liable to pull the trigger-"

"With all due respect, Lieutenant, I think I know what I'm doing." Shepard assured him before walking up the ramp towards the girl's hiding place.

"Good luck, Commander." Girard saluted behind her.

In mere seconds, Shepard arrived at the containers, not even flinching as she used her biotics to delicately pry open the girl's fingers and pull the gun into her hand in one swift motion. _'Have I always been a biotic?'_ Shepard wondered idly as the girl before her - a scared, shivering, buzz-cut, clear wreck of a woman - looked two seconds away from jumping over the ledge. _'Eh, must just be one of the alternate timelines.'_ She shrugged mentally as she biotically pulled the girl into her arms.

"S-stop!" The girl panicked as she tried to force Shepard away, even as Shepard gently stroked her head and down her back to comfort her. "What do you-? What are you-?"

"My name is Jane Shepard." She whispered softly to the poor girl. "I'm going to help you, help make things better. What's your name?"

"Animals don't get names." The girl whispered shakily. "The master puts their symbols on her. Hot metal all over her back. She screams when they do it."

"For every single time they hurt you, I promise you I'll kill a hundred Batarians." Shepard assured her gently. "You are not an animal." She insisted a bit more fiercely. "Think back. Think of your parents. What name did they give you? That's who you are, not some number or product those four-eyed bastards can buy and sell. Remember."

"She remembers a lot of things." The girl answered shakily, but perhaps a bit more confident as he resistance got weaker. "Talitha." She murmured fondly. "They call her that. Sh-she doesn't remember the rest." She began resisting much more fiercely. "Leave her alone!"

"Never!" Shepard hissed protectively, hundreds of visions of Batarians flashing through her memory. Some were of their arrogance, hatefulness and violence on full display during her childhood on Mindoir, or the early stages of the attack on Elysium, while at least as many were of their cowardice, backstabbing and pain as she slaughtered them by the hundreds in the later stages of the attack on Elysium, and later on Torfan, taking care to violently gouge out all four of their eyes with every kill she made, reveling in the sacrilege she was committing against their religion with every stab, and proudly cutting off their heads to display her grisly trophies mounted on pikes as a warning to all Batarians. "Not until I know you're safe." She continued as she forced down those images for later. "Remember. What happened to your parents?"

"There's...She sees them." Talitha whispers. "They're yelling. Run! Hide!" Her voice hikes in volume and panic. "They hit the masters. But the masters, they have lights and hoses. Daddy's...he's melting!" She cried in sorrow as she clenched her head. "Sh-she doesn't want to see that! Don't make her look. Don't look! Stupid, stupid!"

"Be strong, Talitha!" Shepard squeezed her tightly, trying to assure herself almost as much as she was trying to assure Talitha. "I know it hurts, but you have to face what happened. Acknowledge it, but don't let it consume you. Overcome, because that's the only way to win against the masters."

"She's not strong, she's weak. The masters say so!" Talitha shook her head in denial. "When she thinks, water comes out of her eyes." She shakes fearfully, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. "The masters beat her when she wastes water, so she doesn't think anymore." Her trembling intensifies. "She sees them. Mommy and Daddy. Burning in the white light. Melting. Going to pieces. They can't even say anything to her!" She wept openly. "They're dead Shepard. They try to save her, and the masters burn them. Can we stop remembering now? Please?"

"I was on Mindoir." Shepard told Talitha gently, trying to find some common ground. "My parents died in the raid."

"Lying!" Talitha shouted as she tried to force Shepard away again. "You get hit for lying! Get buzz or the burning. Can't be there." She denied, then began growling in anger. "Why are you alive?! Why are you-why aren't you like her?! Broken." She turned back to whimpering. "Only fit to dig and carry."

"It was hard." Shepard confessed as she called upon flickering half-memories. "I fell pretty far, losing my whole family like that. My friends, my childhood." As she spoke, memories - or maybe time itself, Shepard had no way of knowing for sure - began settling into place. "But the Batarians didn't break me. I broke them instead." She grinned as the mangled fusion of the past itself solidified. "I may have just been a teenager, but I was fierce. When one zapped me and went to grab me, I powered my way through and rammed a knife through his eye into his brain. I grabbed his gun, hunkered down behind his corpse, and shot his friend to death when he came after me too. The recoil nearly dislocated my shoulder, and every shot felt like it might tear my damn arm off, but I kept going." She grinned as she savagely got into the story. "When more of them came, I hid under the bodies of their buddies to catch them by surprise, and chucked some grenades I stole from them when their backs were turned. Honestly, everything after that was a total blur, and by the time the Alliance arrived to investigate..." She stopped to chuckle mirthfully. "When I woke up, I was in an Alliance medical bay. I had more than thirty broken bones, a dozen dislocated joints, massive blood loss, severe exhaustion, bits of shrapnel and Batarian bones all over and inside of me, my sixteen year old body barely held together and kept going until my rescue by raw adrenaline, but I was alive, and about two dozen Batarians that had come for me weren't."

"You lose your mommy and daddy. But you don't dig. You don't carry." Talitha whispered in awe and admiration. "You stand up. You fight. She wishes she could stand up and fight."

"You want to stand up?" Shepard asked softly. "I'll teach you a trick if you answer me one thing. What's the last thing you remember from Mindoir?"

"Fires." Talitha responds immediately, her tone sounding miles away. "Smells of smoke and burning meat. Animals screaming as the masters cage them." Shepard gave her a gentle squeeze and brushed her back. "As they put the metals to their backs. Put the wires in their brains." Shepard moves one hand to Talitha's back, and the other to her head, the gentle touches having the desired effect as she briefly stiffens, then relaxes a bit. "She pretends to be dead. If she's dead, she can't work. But they know!" Her voice hitched into a whine, almost as if she were a child complaining about chores and not a grown woman talking about PTSD and attempted suicide. "She hopes they'll leave, but they put her in the pen." Her head shook weakly. "She didn't fight. She was already broken when they put the wires in."

"Not everyone can be me, Talitha." Shepard assured her sadly, while simultaneously checking how many seconds had passed since her time with this poor broken girl had begun, and silently vowing to kill a Batarian for every single second she had to be here. For both Shepard's and Talitha's sake, she was hoping to be here for a very long time. "You were what, six years old? No one but the Batarians blame you for staying quiet and hoping they'd go away, and their opinions don't mean jack shit here. The only person blaming you is you. That's my secret." Shepard backed up a bit to look Talitha in her eyes. "Hate the Batarians, love yourself, and never stop moving forward."

"She wants to believe that." Talitha looked down quietly. "She wants to believe nothing would change." She shook her head. "She doesn't want to be there anymore. In the pen. In the cages. Lying quiet while they do things to her." Shepard's mind screeched to a crashing halt the moment she heard those words, before furiously contemplating the logistics of strapping a massive propulsion unit to an asteroid and launching it onto the Batarian homeworld. "She wants to be strong like you, but she doesn't know if she can."

"You don't need to be strong like me, Talitha." Shepard pat her sadly on the shoulder before squeezing her tightly again, only this time it was to comfort both of them. "Just...just tell me how you escaped them, and I promise you'll never see another Batarian ever again...because I'm going to wipe out their entire species just for you."

"She can't escape." Talitha shook her head as if the mere thought were some cruel, sick joke. "They have chains, wires, needles! You go too far, they take your brains away!" Despite the utter tragedy of what this poor girl had been through, a tiny part of Shepard's mind that she made a mental note to have lobotomized later thought that the way she said that last sentence was meme-worthy. "Animals like her come. Animals with guns. They make the masters explode." Shepard added another mental note to the growing list to find out whoever led that mission against her slavers, and personally making sure that they got a medal for their work. "She tries to fix the masters so they won't be mad at her. She puts all the reds and purples back in, but they don't move. The other animals take her."

"You were afraid." Shepard sighed sadly as she picked Talitha up bridal style, again ignoring her protests and struggling as she held her close and made her way back to Girard. "All you'd known for 13 years was the master's abuse, so you tried to heal them."

"No!" She desperately tried to push Shepard away. "She doesn't want to see other animals. They're not real. They can't be real. They can't see her!" She grabbed the sides of her head and shook it. "If the animals can see her, then this is real, but it can't be! The wires, the chains, the hitting." Her arms moved to her sides, holding herself tightly. "This doesn't happen to her. It's another girl, a dirty girl, a stupid girl! She deserves it!" She said with violent certainty, which just made Shepard even sadder. "It... it happens to her. Doesn't it?" She sobbed weakly. "They see her, so it's real. She doesn't want it to be real!"

"I really wish I could do more to help you, Talitha." Shepard shook her head tiredly as she set the girl back on her feet, right next to Girard, though she immediately jumped behind Shepard, obviously having come to see her as something safe. "But I have other things I need to take care of right now, other people I need to help. If I don't act to help them as soon as I possibly can...a lot more people might end up suffering just as badly as you. Do you want that to happen?"

"No!" Talitha shouted as she tried to yank away one of Shepard's guns, only for Shepard to immediately snatch it back and put it back in the holster. "Give that back! She has to help! She doesn't want others to be like her! Dirty and broken! Not good, not good! Have to help. Have to work. Have to fix!"

"That's the kind of attitude I like to see!" Shepard grinned as she proudly clapped Talitha on the shoulder. "Make the galaxy a better, safer place for everyone who deserves it, while making life hell for those who make it worse. Now which one do you want to be?"

"She...she gets a choice?" Talitha uttered uncertainly. "But...but she never gets to...she doesn't want to...she doesn't...she wants to fix things. Make things better."

"Say that again." Shepard softly rapped her knuckles on Talitha's shoulder.

"She wants to fix things. Make things better." Talitha repeated with a little more confidence.

"Again."

"She wants to fix things. Make things better!" She declared as she stood up straight.

"Louder!"

" **I** want to fix things!" Talitha shouted at the top of her sore, long underused lungs, causing Girard as his men to jump back in shock. " **I** want to make things better! She doesn't... **I** don't want there to be more people like me!" She began cracking up again, her voice quavering back to a sad and sore croak. " **I** remember **me**... It's hard to remember me...but I have to, I want to. Don't want others like me."

Smiling at Talitha's first step on a no doubt long road to recovery, Shepard gave her a friendly pat on the back. "I know." She assured her as she gently nudged Talitha over to Girard. "These nice people...they'll take care of you. Help you get better, so I can help more people. Understand?" She said as she turned Talitha's gaze to her own for one last time. "I help people. You can help me help others, by getting help for yourself. Okay?"

"...So many people...all helping others." Talitha muttered in confusion. "All so much...why so much help?"

"Because it's a lot better than the other thing." Shepard assured her as she went over to Girard. "You take good care of Talitha. Got that soldier?"

"Yes sir!" Girard saluted Shepard proudly, more inspired and proud to be an Alliance soldier than he'd ever been before in his entire career.

"At ease, gentlemen." She nodded back before moving on with her shore leave, suddenly much more relaxed and invigorated than she'd felt since just before Eden Prime.

* * *

 **Tales of a War Hero Spacer - Zakera Ward**

Having given the grand tour of her ship to Rear Admiral Mikhailovich and somewhat justifying it to him in the process, and having saved the traumatized Talitha from suicide, Jane Shepard felt pretty good about how the day was shaping up thus far. With some time to kill before her scheduled meet up with Ben, Liara, Tali & Shiala, she decided to check out how the shopping was at the Zakera Ward. Just before she could get there however, someone that gave her a slight headache and sense of dejavu just to look at him called her aside. Recognizing the sensation as being familiar to every other chronal manipulation based migraine she'd ever had she decided it would be best to find out who he was and what he wanted.

"Hey. Been a long time, huh?" The man who she may or may not remember addressed her when she stopped in front of him.

"I'm sorry, do we know each other?" Shepard asked the man even as she shifted through her chronologically overlapping memories.

"I guess you don't remember me." The man remarked with a nervous stutter. "Lieutenant Zabaleta? I worked with your mother." The man paused wistfully as he thought back, with Shepard still struggling to put the pieces together. She remembered that her mother - at least one version of her mother, anyway - had been, and still was, an Alliance soldier like herself, but without any direct prompts it was difficult at the best of times to remember much of anything beyond a certain point. "We served on the carrier Einstein." The Lieutenant continued. "That was 12...13 years back. You were just a kid them." He brushed it off as unimportant.

"I guess you're not in the service anymore, huh?" Shepard remarked casually as she noted that the man was clearly worn down both physically and mentally.

"'Retired', yeah." Zabaleta remarked jokingly. "You know how it is. Times are tough for vets. They always are." He said tiredly.

"I didn't see her much that tour. The ship was on patrol most of the time." Shepard remarked, as much to help prompt her memory to dig up those old recollections as it was to explain her lack of recollection to Zabaleta.

"Hey, call your mom up and ask." The man urged her a little too eagerly. "She'd remember old Zabaleta. She'd vouch for me." Pausing to wipe away the sweat forming on his brow, he continued. "Look, I need a favor. I'm kinda short on money these days. I hate hitting you up for money, but a man's gotta eat, right?" He chuckled awkwardly. "So, uh, could you spare something? Maybe 20 credits?" He practically begged.

"20 isn't enough to get you back on your feet, is it?" Shepard sighed in tired disappointment at the man, easily pegging him for a drunk or addict out for his next fix.

"Nah, nah!" He denied hastily. "I'll just get a...a meal! You know?" He tried to bargain.

"Yeah, it's not a problem." Jane remarked, taking pity on the poor man as she handed him the requested credits.

"Hey, you're a good kid, you know that?" Zabaleta remarked with a woozy glaze in his eyes. "Thanks." He fidgeted with the credits in his hands for a few seconds before continuing. "You ever want to come by and talk, I'll be here. Hehehe...Can't afford a ticket home, right?"

"Yeah." Jane nodded as she turned away. "Be seeing you, Zabaleta."

 **Normandy - Comms Room**

Immediately after talking with Zabaleta, Jane knew she had to do something to help. She sometimes cursed her better nature, but it never lasted, especially in cases like this one, where she already knew exactly what to do. Dredging up a specific set of highly conflicting memories took some serious focus, but that was one thing Shepards were known to have in abundance. "Computer, give me a real-time connection to the dreadnaught Kilimanjaro. I want to speak to my mother, XO Shepard." Parts of her felt weird saying that, as in addition to a high ranking Alliance soldier, she also knew her mother to be a deadbeat who abandoned her as a child, and a casualty of Batarian slavers. She quickly shoved that thought aside though, as it was mere seconds before her call got a reply.

"Shepard spe...oh, hi." The voice of Hannah Shepard came over the comms. "I don't have time for a personal call right now. I'm on duty."

"I know what that's like." Jane remarked tiredly. _'More than you could ever imagine, mom.'_ She tagged on mentally, keeping that little detail to herself for right now. "Do you remember a Lieutenant Zabaleta from the Einstein?"

"Ernesto? Have you heard from him?" Hannah inquired with concern. "He was one of the marines who guarded the CIC. We shared a watch. I lost track of him after...there was an incident." She trailed off sadly.

"I've seen him here on the Citadel." Jane informed her mother sadly. "Looks like he's had some hard times."

"I don't doubt it." Hannah noted tiredly. "You remember the Batarian raid on Mindoir, in 2070? You were in high school."

 _'More than you will ever know, mom.'_ Jane thought grimly as she got flashbacks to the part of her that was there that awful day.

"The Einstein's task group responded to the mayday." Hannah continued, unaware of the mental trauma her daughter was shoving back in a tiny and unimportant portion of her mind. "The Batarians were still pulling out when the marines hit groundside. Zabaleta was one of the first down." Hannah paused hesitantly. "He...he was never quite the same after."

"I had to talk down a rescued slave from that raid less than an hour ago." Jane admitted sadly. "The PTSD was so bad she was trying to kill herself."

"Then you know how bad it was." Hannah replied sadly. "He tried to keep working, but it rode him. He showed up drunk on duty more and more. We couldn't always cover for him." She paused again, and Jane could almost imagine her mother shaking her head in regret. "The Alliance discharged him. Everyone knew he drank because of what he'd seen down there. Even if he never talked about it...Especially because he never talked about it."

"For it to have affected him that deeply, he must have been a very sensitive man." Jane noted.

"He was." Hannah recollected wistfully. "Always in laughter and tears." She paused to take a deep breath. "If you see him, tell him we still worry about him. Tell him to go to the Veteran's Affairs Office. I have to go. But take care of yourself. You're making us proud. Kilimanjaro out." With that, she cut the line, leaving Jane with a new directive.

 **A Short While Later - Zakera Ward**

Shepard wasted no time making a beeline for Zabaleta. She was a woman on a mission, and she wasn't going to waste any time sitting around.

"Hey, back again, eh?" Ernesto Zabaleta grinned awkwardly the moment he saw her, not the least bit suspecting. "Don't suppose you've got any credits to spare."

"I spoke to my mother." Jane informed him with all the sympathy she could muster. "She told me about what happened on Mindoir."

"Did she?" Ernesto remarked with bitter sarcasm. "I wonder. People tied like prize hogs. Locked in cages, clawing and screaming as they're loaded into cargo pods." His voice rose in tone, pitch and panic. "And we couldn't reach them. The Batarians defenses had us pinned. Dozens died trying to advance. All we could do was watch as they hauled people away." His voice took on a tone of silent dread. "I've been looking for 13 years for something to make that sight go away. What have you got, huh?!" He inquired sarcastically.

"I'm not going to give you money to drink yourself to death." Jane said firmly. "You need to stop this."

"If you don't have a better option, just give me 20 credits!" Ernesto spat hotly. "A good bottle of whiskey. Enough to stop the dreams." He sighed tiredly.

"I already set you up with an account at a nearby grocery store, for food only. No alcohol." Shepard said firmly. "And my mother said to go to the Veteran's Affairs Office. You're not the only one who's seen that brand of hell. They can help."

"The VAO...God!" Ernesto spat in frustration and paced for a few seconds. "If she wants me to go talk to someone fine, I'll do it. For her. She always stuck up for me." He shook his head with a joyless chuckle. "She always was naive. All the VAO does is pump you full of chemicals. If she wants to talk, tell her she can reach me through the Citadel VAO."

"I'll be sure to let her know." Jane nodded contentedly as he walked off. "And I'm sure she'll be happy to hear it too."

* * *

 **Tales of a Ruthless Earthborn - Chora's Den**

After having saved Talitha and Ernesto from themselves, on top of the earlier surprise inspection, Shepard needed a drink badly. Not that helping people get over trauma was a bad thing, it was just mentally and emotionally taxing, and she was giving the entire crew the day off to get them to unwind, not work them up the walls even further. Unfortunately for Jane Shepard, the universe had apparently decided to give her one more middle finger before the day was out.

"They told me it was you, but I didn't believe it." A shady looking guy just outside of Chora's Den smirked at her with a devious glint in his eye. "Shepard grew up and turned into a soldier."

"An impatient soldier." Shepard glared back even as she immediately began tracing her memories back from the timeline where she was known as the Butcher of Torfan, thinking that was the most likely timeline where she'd associate with such an obvious scumbag without either putting them in a cell, or a bullet in their skull. "Who are you, and why are you in my way?"

"Name's Finch." The man replied curtly. "You probably don't remember me, but we ran together in the Tenth Street Reds." He paused only briefly to shake his head sarcastically. "You probably don't remember it yourself, running in a gang. None of the vids mention it when they're talking about you."

 _'Probably because three histories have been tied up into one knot.'_ Shepard thought sarcastically as pieces began falling into place, despite her not wanting them to, before directing her focus to a response. "The vids never tell the whole story. So what can I do for the Reds?"

"One of the Reds, Curt Weisman, got picked up by the Turians." Finch explained. "We'd like you to talk to the Turian guard in the bar and get Kurt out."

"What was this guy arrested for?" Shepard asked, even as the more devious part of her mind began cranking through the information she had on her old gang buddies, trying to figure out what she could get out of this without paying too big a price.

"Some stupid minor offense." Finch replied evasively, a red flag if Shepard had ever seen one. "Maybe he had a little red sand. You know how the Turians are." He shook his head in arrogant judgement. "They declared him a problem, and they're shipping him back for a trial."

 _'You're goddamn right I know how the Turians are.'_ Shepard saw through his lie in an instant. _'Certainly more than you, that's for sure. Both culturally and legally, Turians have no problems with recreational drug use, unless it's done to excess or becomes a problem to others.'_ Rather than call out the lie however, she decided to probe for more information. "You're not asking me to break Weisman out of jail, are you?"

"Of course not." Finch replied in a tone that clearly indicated the opposite. "But word has it you've got some pull with the aliens. All we're asking you to do is pull a little for us."

"What was one of the Tenth Street Reds doing in Turian space, anyway?" Shepard addressed the final issue she had with all of this nonsense she was being forced to put up with.

"Since your days, the Reds have expanded." Finch replied, as if that were something to be proud of. "We do some salvage, a little shipping here and there, that kind of thing."

 _'I very much doubt that's the extent of it, but I should probably see where this goes anyway.'_ Shepard thought as she began brainstorming all sorts of uses the modern day Reds could have preparing for and participating in a galactic scale war against the Reapers, most of it very high risk. "I'll talk to the Turian and see what I can do."

"Thanks, Shepard." Finch grinned as he and Shepard shook hands. "I knew you're remember your old friends. The guard's over in Chora's Den." He explained as he stifled a chuckle. "Take care of this, and you'll never see me again."

Her task set, Shepard quickly went into the bar, which she idly noted had fully repaired the hole left by Ben's lava shotgun. Spotting the Turian officer, she quietly asked the bartender to get a drink ready for her when she got back, preferably something strong, as she had a feeling she would need it.

"Can I help you?" The Turian asked once he noticed Shepard approaching him.

"A human named Finch wanted me to use my authority as a SPECTRE to free Curt Weisman." Shepard warned the Turian.

"The xenophobe?" The Turian responded in mild shock. "I should have known he'd have friends." He nodded his head gratefully. "Thank you for the information. We'll increase the guard on his cell."

"I knew you'd rat us out, Shepard!" Finch growled at her angrily as he approached, getting the attention of both her and the Turian officer. "Now it's payback time!" He said menacingly...or at least menacing from his perspective. Personally, Shepard had seen so much crazy shit in just the past few weeks that his tone barely registered as a slight itch. "When we're through telling our story, the aliens will all know what the first Human SPECTRE really is."

 _'I barely know who I am.'_ Shepard thought in an odd mixture of scathing and humorous. "My bio is public record." She responded smoothly. "Everyone knows that I ran with gangs as a kid." That reflexive response set off warning sirens in her head. _'Shit! All three of my histories are public record, aren't they?!'_ She mentally panicked, even though visibly she remained cool and collected.

"They don't know that the Reds target aliens specifically." Finch gave a predatory smirk, leaving Shepard nervous for reasons that had almost nothing to do with him. "We've got the backers to handle offworld missions. Your alien friends won't like you so much when they hear what your gang did."

"What do you want, Finch?" Shepard asked, a bit more fiercely than she meant to. "What gets you out of my life?" She narrowed the focus. _'I have way more important things than some xenophobe with an irrational grudge to deal with right now.'_

"What do I want?" Finch replied sarcastically. "I want aliens off of Earth. I want the Council to stay out of Humanity's business."

"The Tenth Street Reds was a gang, not an Earth-First movement." Shepard retorted as she managed to reign her calm back in. _'Public records can be forged, and misinformation is more common than not. With any luck, most people who don't know me personally from those days will just think the conflicting backstories are cover-ups or rumors, not evidence of an inter-timeline conspiracy.'_

"They're a Human movement now." Finch rebutted, as if there was a distinction between the two. "You think the vids will make that distinction." He threatened, not realizing the irony of that statement. "I can find a dozen Reds who'll swear they saw you kill aliens for fun. Who's going to believe you then?"

 _'Why am I wasting time on this bullshit? I have a war to prepare for, and a drink waiting to help me buzz this irritating moment out of my head.'_ Shepard thought as she quickly thought up a response that would get her what she needed. "If you want Humanity to be strong, a smear attack on the first Human SPECTRE is a bad idea."

"The SPECTRE is right." The officer seconded the motion. "This is Humanity's chance to prove itself. There is even talk of earning a Council seat."

"Of course you'd side with Shepard!" Finch spat with vicious spite. "You want someone who's in bed with your kind!"

"I'm in bed with a Quarian, two Asari, and an extra-galactic shapeshifter. Haven't found a Turian I like that way just yet. I'd go for Garrus, but I think he's already spoken for." Shepard retorted sarcastically, drawing befuddled looks from both parties. "...Yes, I mean that literally. Who are either of you to judge?" She shot cold looks at them, both of them raising their hands in placating surrender. "And as for you." She grabbed Finch roughly by his shirt and pulled him in close enough to see the whites of his eyes. "I'm a SPECTRE now. I could systematically hunt down and kill you, your gang, your entire family, and legally get away with all of it. I'm not going to do that though. Do you know why?" She asked with a casually danger to her tone, Finch quickly shaking his head nervously in response. "It's because I'm generous to my friends. And you're gonna be a good friend to me by being my rat on the inside. From now on, any little schemes the Reds try to pull, any other groups they work with, any time they so much as twitch their nose, you're gonna report everything to our new best friend here." She explained in a hissing tone as she jerked her thumb in the direction of the Turian officer, causing him to double take in response. "Do I make myself clear, Finch?"

"Crystal." Finch nodded fearfully, as did the officer, though Shepard couldn't see him do so.

"Good." Shepard nodded as she walked off to the bar. "Now if you'll both excuse me..." She stopped and chugged the drink she'd ordered earlier, slamming the empty mug down with a satisfied sigh. "I needed that." She smiled as she casually strolled away to meet up with Ben and the others.

"...That human just downed a whole pint of ryncol." The bartender remarked in shock and awe, striking fear into the hearts of the officer and Finch, both of whom made a silent vow to never do anything that might make Shepard angry.

* * *

 **Later - Citadel Embassy Lounge**

"I hate my life." Shepard sighed in exhaustion as she collapsed onto her chair.

"Whoa, what's got you feeling like how my grandpa's cooking smells?" Ben asked sarcastically, earning odd looks from everyone else. "...Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Being equal parts of three contradictory backstories from a massive fold in space-time, that's what." Jane replied tiredly as she pressed a glass of ice water to the side of her face. "Seeing and feeling everything come clashing together in my brain gave me some massive new PTSD. How the hell do you deal with this kind of thing, Ben? Working with Paradox, I mean."

"Honestly?" Ben replied dully. "I don't know if I've ever had it quite as bad as you do. Don't get me wrong, teaming-up with Paradox is always a headache and a half, especially that time I teamed-up with alternate versions of myself to fight alternate, evil versions of myself." He paused to let that sink in, eliciting tired groans and a few chuckles from everyone else. "...My life is a goddamn comic book, isn't it?"

"You're just realizing this now?" Kaidan chuckled as he munched on some cookies he'd bought earlier. "Also, nobody's called them 'comics' since forced diversity, the abusive working conditions and higher-ups, and a metric truckload of SJW bullshit utterly destroyed the industry in the mid 2020s. It's either graphic novels or manga now, with shared universes being the exception rather than the norm." He noted conversationally, only noticing the odd looks everyone was giving him after several seconds of silence. "...What? It's not like Joker and Ben have a monopoly on pop-culture references and sarcastic criticism and humor."

"Yeah, but it's a really weird thing to bring up out of nowhere." Ashley noted awkwardly before taking a long, drawn out sip of her protein shake.

"Also, we're just a lot better at it than you are." Ben added smugly before chugging half of his third smoothie, happily taking the wind out of Kaidan's already flimsy sails. "We just make quick one-liners, yours was practically a speech."

"...Speaking of weird things out of nowhere." Tali began nervously as she rose from her seat and waved over a male Quarian that had just entered. "Everyone...I'd like to introduce you all to Admiral Rael'Zorah...my father." She said with a salute.

"At ease, Tali." Rael let out a soft hum of a chuckle, gently pushing down her arm before suddenly pulling her into a surprise embrace. "...I'm so proud of you."

"Father!" Tali squirmed at the sudden display of affection from her long estranged parent. "What in the name of Rannoch are you doing?! You're embarrassing me in front of all my friends!" She hissed as everyone let out a few playful chuckles at the adorable sight of the father embracing his daughter.

"I can't help it." Rael sighed happily as he finally released his daughter. "I just...what you've given to us...to all Quarians...it's just..." He choked up, holding up a pausing hand and shaking his head in disbelief. "Words do not exist that can describe how...overjoyed our people are."

"Really?" Tali tilted her head questioningly. "All I did was provide evidence of what most young Quarians already suspected might be the case. Honestly, I'd thought that there'd be a lot more controversy surrounding the whole thing, considering our history with the Geth."

"I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of push-back." Rael sighed in mental exhaustion. "Even I doubted it at first...Still, between your message, the evidence, and going to Zaal'Koris of all people for advice..." He chuckled mirthfully in recollection. "It finally won me over. Then we both managed to convince Shala'Raan, and with a majority vote, we managed to force through at least an attempt to meet the so-called 'True' Geth on neutral grounds."

"That's wonderful!" This time it was Tali's turn to hug her father, an embrace he eagerly returned. "When's the meeting? Where is it? What about Garrel and Xen? I can't imagine those two bosh'tets are too happy about this turn of events."

"Settle down there, Tali." Rael chuckled at his daughter's enthusiasm, glad to finally be able to act like that father he should have been for so many years. "The details of the meeting are being kept on a strict need-to-know basis, and despite having been the one to find the data..."

"I get it." Tali nodded understandingly as they parted again. "Do what you have to do for the benefit of our people, despite any personal cost. That's all any Quarian can hope to do."

"It shouldn't have to be." Rael said as he looked down at his hands in frustration. "I should have been..." He shook his head. "That's all in the past though. What matters now is that we take this chance you've given us, and focus on building a better future where no Quarian will be forced to make such sacrifices ever again. As for the other two admirals..." He shook his head and clenched his hands in frustration. "Garrel and I aren't on speaking terms anymore, and I doubt we ever will be again." He huffed angrily.

"What?!" Tali remarked in shock. "But you two have been practically brothers since you saved one of our freighters from a Batarian raid before you were both shoved out on your early Pilgrimage together!"

"And because of that I expected him to at least try and look at the potential this data presents with an open mind." Rael shook his head in frustration as he began to pace. "But that stubborn old warship pulled out every dirty trick in the book to try and stonewall this decision. Slandering Koris as a suit-wetting coward to any captains that would listen, and having the nerve to say that Raan and I were 'emotionally compromised' due my being your father and Raan being a longtime friend of the family, conveniently forgetting all the years he and I spent frustrating those pompous Turians every chance we got...No offence to your teammate, of course." He quickly apologized when he noticed Garrus.

"None taken." Garrus shrugged before chugging some Turian beer. "Trust me, I know how difficult my people can be at the best of times. Why do you think I joined a team without any other Turians on it to begin with?"

"To annoy the crap out of the rest of us?" Wrex verbally jabbed the ex-C-Sec officer.

"So how did you finally manage to force the decision to make peace-talks with the Geth through?" Shepard inquired stoically. "As any human who knows their history can tell you, there's nothing more dangerous to the survival of a species than when a hypocrite digs in their heels."

"You must be Commander Shepard." Rael saluted the redhead, getting a casually salute back. "Tali has spoken of you often in her letters, and I did some independent investigations of my own the moment I heard my daughter would be working under you." He nodded in approval, obviously liking what he'd heard, and even more obviously not knowing the innuendo he'd just made, if Tali's embarrassment, Shepard's smirk, and Ben's subdued chuckle were anything to go by. "To answer your question, it was actually Admiral Daro'Xen who was the voice of reason that forced the decision through in the end."

"Admiral Xen?!" Tali repeated in shock and disbelief. "The same Admiral Xen that performed surgery on her childhood toys? Who talks of reprogramming the Geth back into their original state as our servants and lording the largest synthetic army in the galaxy over the heads of the Citadel Council? She was the voice of reason?!"

"I was as shocked as you are when she voted in favor of the decision." Rael admitted without hesitation. "Obviously, she's trying to work some kind of angle to take control of the Geth, but with the Reapers on the way..." He stopped short, realizing he shouldn't be discussing such things too publicly. "The point is, I'll take her support now to try and avert a disaster later. Our science team and military tacticians say that, depending on the methods used, we have five years at most before...real trouble shows up..." He shuddered at the thought of the scale of disaster the Reapers could cause. "And even that's considered an enormously generous and conservative estimate. With those timetables and the options we're considering, I feel confident that we can divert her attention to other vital tasks long enough to defuse her...less savory projects."

"We'll take whatever we can get." Ben gave a grateful nod as he walked up and wrapped an arm over Tali's shoulder, prompting her to fidget nervously against his torso. "With two-thirds of the Citadel Council being the stubborn blowhards they are, maybe an alliance between the Quarians, Geth and Humans could finally make them take the word of outsiders like us seriously."

"...You must be Ambassador Tennyson, from Andromeda." Rael remarked as he noted the uncomfortable closeness between his daughter and the shapeshifter, and how Tali seemed all too happy to have Ben's arm around her. "My daughter has spoken much of you in our communications, how your insight has helped shape her viewpoint of the conflict between Quarian and Geth for the better, but it seems she has neglected to inform me of...certain other insights she's developed with you..."

"OH no!" Tali wagged her finger angrily at her father. "Don't you dare go there, Father! I understand your position as an Admiral and the pressure that comes with it, and despite everything in our past I'm willing to give you a chance to finally act like a real father, but you do NOT, under any circumstances, get to be the overprotective father! You gave up the right to that long ago!"

"I'm just concerned." Rael defended himself from his daughter's verbal assault. "He's from another galaxy. Who knows what sort of...I mean, I know his DNA was supposedly based off of a human template, but even they don't have the same amino acids as-"

"Not hearing this! La-la-la, not hearing this!" Tali trilled as she covered the sides of her helmet.

"I assure you, there's no cause for alarm, Admiral." Liara interjected to try and set his mind at ease. "Dr. Chakwas, our ship's medic, has done extensive tests, and she assures me that Ben's polymorphic DNA can immediately adapt and bond to any potential sentient host parent, so there are no biochemical barriers to-"

"It can do what now?!" Ben panicked as everyone involved looked at the young Asari in alarm.

"You mean...you didn't know?" Liara blinked sheepishly.

"What makes you think we would know?" Tali asked her tensely. "You know we haven't exactly been using protection!" She hissed.

"You haven't been WHAT?!" Rael looked at his daughter in alarm. "And why would she know that?" He pointed at Liara accusingly.

"I already said you don't get to be the over-protective father!" Tali pointed back at her father as the conversation continued to spiral into madness.

"I am way too old and way too sober for this shit." Wrex shook his head tiredly before turning himself in the direction of the bar. "Hey, could I get another four or five mugs of ryncol over here?"

* * *

 **Next Day - Horse Head Nebula - Pax System**

"I. Am going. To die." Tali groaned as she shook her head in shame, hiding in the corner of the Normandy's cargo hold.

"Still thinking about our little spat with your dad yesterday?" Ben asked as he cautiously rubbed his lover's shoulders, earning a barely noticeable nod in response. "I'm surprised. Honestly, I thought everyone more or less forgot about that after that scuffle with those privateers a few hours ago on Xawin."

"Please, that sort of thing is barely a blip on the radar at this point." Tali huffed mockingly. "Why were we even there in the first place, anyway?"

Ben paused for several seconds, having to struggle to recall the reason for their involvement despite his normally photographic memory. "I think it was something about a missing mining ship?" He answered uncertainly. "My memory's been a bit spottier than usual ever since we got those anti-indoctrination injections from ExoGeni."

"A temporary side-effect." Liara noted as she pulled up a seat next to them. "Dr. Chakwas has some vitamin supplements that can help counteract it if you're interested."

"No thanks." Ben declined politely. "I don't know why, but for some reason just being near Dr. Chakwas freaks me out. I mean, I'm not normally afraid of doctors, but something about Karin just makes me want to keep a wide distance from her."

"To be fair, you have consented to a number of rather invasive tests with her." Liara noted clinically. "Perhaps it is creating a subconscious association with your fight-or-flight instinct."

"I beat the crap out of mad scientists after my DNA on a regular basis." Ben reminded her of his prior adventures. "I haven't been afraid of any of them since I was ten years old, so why would she freak me out?"

"It is called fight-or-flight for a reason, beloved." Shiala remarked as she entered the conversation, her build and the use of the word 'beloved' making Ben wonder how Looma and the other girls were doing with his genetic source. "You trust Dr. Chakwas enough to do these tests on you, but you are conditioned to view doctors studying your DNA with suspicion. You don't allow yourself to harm her, so you are left with an impulse to stay away instead."

"...She makes a good point, you know." Tali commented nonchalantly.

"I guess I'll try looking at it that way and being more open-minded in the future." Ben sighed as he leaned up against the wall.

"Glad I could be of service, Ben." Shiala nodded as she sat down with the rest of them. "Now that we have put this issue to rest, there is one other topic I wished to bring up."

"And that would be what exactly?" Liara inquired inquisitively.

 **...**

 **Omake 3: Tales of Another Ben**

"It concerns the goings on of another Ben Tennyson." Shiala began. "I know we agreed to discuss these matters with the whole ground team, but I recently witnessed something that...has me concerned for the future, both the immediate and the distant."

"What about him...me...whatever?" Ben shook his head as he struggled to find the right pronouns.

"During our first melding, I saw that Paradox had briefly brought you all to a universe of darkness known as Varelsi Space." Shiala reminded them. "You will also recall that another version of Ben was involved in that area as well, albeit only briefly."

"I...think he might have said something like that back then?" Tali remarked uncertainly. "It was a while ago, and we didn't actually get to see this other Ben."

"Yes, well, that Ben is made from a composite of three different strands of DNA." Shiala explained as she held her hands up, using her biotics to conjure a glowing helix in each. "The right half of your body is made from Swampfire, while the left half is made from Upgrade." She then moved the two helices together into a double helix symbolic of DNA. "Binding these two radically different genetic codes together is the DNA of Lodestar, which visibly forms a pair of extended shoulder blades and your head." The double helix shifted into a form that looked vaguely like what she had just described, albeit entirely in blue.

"Fascinating." Liara whispered in awe. "Organic and Synthetic DNA, bound together by microscopic magnetic forces. It's not my field of expertise, but I'd love a chance to study him nonetheless."

"You just might get that chance." Shiala uttered with dread. "You see, this Ben was sent to a dying universe, with only one star and a handful of habitable planets and moons left in existence." That remark sank like a weight in the pit of everyone's stomach. Heat death was a terrifying thing to think about even at the best of times, let alone while you were actually forced to live it. "The entropy of this universe has been artificially accelerated by the Varelsi that inhabit that universe of darkness you briefly visited. They use unknown technology to steal entire stars and planets, whisking them away to their own universe for equally unknown reasons. They first began their horrific campaign against that universe 20,000 years ago, and were on the brink of total victory before your counterpart arrived."

"...And here I thought the Reapers were terrifying." Ben shuddered after a long silence. "These Varelsi though...there are no words...what is this other me even supposed to do?!" He inquired sarcastically. "Even assuming he's able to stop them, what then? Can he steal back the planets and stars? Are they even still usable? And what about all the people that got stolen along with those worlds? This is all just..." He sighed as he placed his face in his hands.

"You understand my concern, then." Shiala nodded morosely. "These Varelsi...they can cross the borders between universes, and steal stars and planets with seemingly no end in sight other than the end of the universe they are plundering. While the other Ben and the comrades he has found in a group of powerful warriors calling themselves Battleborn have managed to avert disaster for now, and even inflicted sizable damage to the Varelsi themselves, victory still seems but a distant dream for now. I worry that...if they manage to capture the other Ben, they may trace the quantum entanglement that binds you to our universe, and who knows how many others." The silence hung stagnant in the recycled air for a long time. Seconds passed, then minutes, each moment feeling simultaneously longer and shorter than it actually was.

"...I've never had a drop of alcohol in my life." Ben finally broke the silence as he stood up and stretched out the kinks that had formed in his back. "Let's go change that, shall we?"

 **Surprised I'm finally posting something again, aren't you? Well, so am I! I make no promises for the future, but here's hoping it doesn't take me another 9 MONTHS to get the next chapter out!**

 **Next time: Noveria and Liara's MILF Benezia!**


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